How do Scientists Contribute to the Performance of Innovative Start‐ups? An Imprinting Perspective on Open Innovation

• Date: 01 July 2019
• Published date: 01 July 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12418

© 2018 John Wiley & Sons Lt d and Society for the Adva ncement of Management Stud ies

How Do Scientists Contribute To The Performance Of

Innovative Start-Ups? An Imprinting Perspective On

Open Innovation

Davide Hahna, Tommaso Minolaa and

Kimberly A. Eddlestonb

aUniversity of Be rgamo; bNortheastern University

ABST RACT Our study il lust rates how scientists contribute to the performanc e of in novative

start-ups thr ough a n analysis of 211 Ita lian start-ups with and w it hout scienti st founders .

Building upon i mpr inting theory, we hypothesize and f ind that scientists provide an adva ntage

to innovative sta rt-ups to the extent that they stimulate open in novation (i.e., search breadth

and depth). However, for this to effectively oc cur, the i nvolvement of mult iple scientist founders

is needed, so that thei r career imprints internali zed in the lab are successfully t ransferred to

the start-up. Moreover, if the star t-up embra ces business practices (i.e., strategic pla nning) or

departs from sc ienti fic logics (i.e., pursuing non-com merci al goals), scientists’ contribution is

further incre ased. Therefore, our study illustrates how the scient ist career imprint can provide

an advantage to i nnovative start-ups with multiple scient ists, but also how it can act as a

rigidit y if the start-up does not pursue strategic pla nning or emphasizes non-commercial g oals.

Keywo rds: imprinti ng, innovative start-ups, open innovat ion, per for mance, scientists’

entrepreneurship

INTRODUCTION

Innovative start-ups, which are new ventures based on the commercialization of science

and technology, are important to economic growt h, the emergence of new products , ser-

vices and industries, and wealth creation (Colombelli et al., 2016; Colombo et al., 2006;

Heirman and Clar ysse, 2004). With innovative start-ups’ tendency to rely on scientific

and technological discoveries, over the last decade, many scientists have shifted t heir

Journal of Man agement Studi es 56:5 July 2019

doi: 10. 1111/j om s.12 418

*Address for rep rints: D avide Hahn, Cent er for Young and Family Enterpr ise and Depart ment of Management,

Information a nd Production Engine ering, University of Be rgamo, viale Pasubio 7b, 240 44 Dalmine ( BG),

Italy (davide.h ahn@unibg.it).

896 D. Hahn et al.

© 2018 John Wiley & Sons Lt d and Society for the Adva ncement of Management Stud ies

careers from the laboratory to entrepreneurship (Knockaert et al., 2011). Scientists’ in-

creasing involvement in the commercialization of scientific discoveries has led to grow-

ing interest in why they decide to engage in entrepreneurial behaviours (Ambos et al.,

2008; Clarysse et al., 2011). However, to date, little is known about the conseque nces of

scientists’ involvement in innovative start-ups (R asmussen et al., 2011). Specifically, how

do scientist founders contribute to the commercializat ion of their st art-ups’ innovations?

Our study seeks to answer t his question by proposing a framework rooted in imprinting

theory that explains how scientists can contribute to their innovative start-up’s perfor-

mance by fostering open innovation.

Open innovation, which refers to a firm’s search for information and knowledge from

external sources, can contribute to the commercialization of innovations by assisting in

their development, design and marketing (Lee et al., 2010). Although start-ups could

benefit from external sources of information because they tend to lack the knowledge

necessary to successfully commercialize new products and services (Colombo et al., 2006;

Sapienza et al., 2004), they often appear reluctant to embrace open innovation (Lee

et al., 2010). This has led some scholars to argue that entrepreneurs need to possess the

right mindset in order to create an organizational culture that values external informa-

tion and knowledge (Classen et al., 2012; Eftekhari and Bogers, 2015). In developing our

framework, we draw from imprinting theory to argue that scientists are endowed with

the right mindset necessary to foster open innovation because they have been trained to

value diverse sources of information and to continually search for new information to

advance knowledge (Fleming and Sorenson, 2004; Friesike et al., 2015). Imprinting the-

ory explains how founders transfer and adapt their career imprints from their previous

jobs to their start-ups (Marquis and Tilcsik, 2013; Simsek et al., 2015), and how these

career imprints then shape the start-up’s structure, culture and routines (Bryant, 2014).

We propose that scientist founders contribute to their innovative start-up’s performance

because the scientist career imprint, which reflects a commitment to exploration and the

pursuit of new knowledge (Bercovitz and Feldman, 2008; Fleming and Sorenson, 2004),

translates to a proclivity to pursue open innovation in the entrepreneurship context. As

such, open innovation is seen as a key mechanism through which scientist founders pro-

vide their innovative start-ups with an advantage in commercialization. Additionally, we

highlight the complexity of transferring and adapting a career imprint to a new context

by proposing that multiple scientist founders are necessary for the scientist career im-

print to promote open innovation in innovative start-ups. Further, in recognizing how the

business and scientific worlds collide in start-ups founded by scientists, we consider how

a practice rooted in the business world (i.e., strategic planning) and a logic rooted in the

scientific world (i.e., pursuit of non-commercial goals) affect the extent to which scientist

founders foster open innovation and thus contribute to their start-up’s performance.

By testing the proposed conceptual model on a sample of 211 innovative start-ups,

this paper offers several contributions to imprinting theory and research on scientists’

involvement in commercializing innovations. First, we contribute to imprinting theory

by explaining how behaviours from a previous career can be tailored to fit a new context.

We argue that the scientist career imprint, with its emphasis on identifying and exploring

new knowledge, translates to open innovation in the entrepreneurship context. As such,

An Imprinting Perspective on Open Innovation 897

© 2018 John Wiley & Sons Lt d and Society for the Adva ncement of Management Stud ies

our study takes advantage of the context of science commercialization to shed light on

how mindsets and norms associated with a previous career imprint transfer and adapt

to a new context. Second, we also argue that the successful transfer of a career imprint

to a new career context is not guaranteed; rather, multiple founders who share a career

imprint are necessary for the values and behaviours from a previous career to take hold

in a new context. Our study demonstrates that multiple scientist founders are necessary

for a start-up to benefit from their proclivity for open innovation. Third, in considering

how a career imprint can provide an advantage in a new context or constitute as ‘bag-

gage’ due to cognitive and normative rigidities (Dokko et al., 2009), we investigate how

two boundary conditions modify the extent to which the number of scientists found-

ers foster open innovation. Our research reveals that while strategic planning augments

the benefits of multiple scientist founders, prioritizing non-commercial goals diminishes

their positive affect on open innovation, thereby decreasing their start-up’s performance.

Finally, we answer calls in the literature for research to identify the specific mechanisms

through which founders imprint their new ventures (Marquis and Tilcsik, 2013; Simsek

et al., 2015) by demonstrating how scientists contribute to their innovative start-up’s per-

formance due to their proclivity for open innovation. Our study therefore highlights how

entrepreneurs have much to learn from scientist founders and would benefit from emu-

lating scientists’ proclivity for open innovation.

THEORY AND HYPOTHESES

Open Innovat ion and the Performance of I nnovative Sta rt-ups

In contrast to innovation practices t hat are predominantly situated within the bounda r-

ies of the firm, open i nnovation recognizes the importance of external s ources of k nowl-

edge to the development of new products and services (Chesbrough, 2003). In turn,

because relationships with external sources can help start-ups to develop and market

new products and services (Marion et al., 2015), open innovation may provide inno-

vative start-ups with a performance advantage. We therefore propose that open inno-

vation helps innovative start-ups to generate sales from the commercialization of their

new products and services. Our study focuses on sales because it is a key performance

measure that captures the success of commercializing innovations (Gilbert et al., 2006;

Marion et al., 2012).

As firms differ in the number of external sources they draw upon as well as the fre-

quency with which they collaborate with each external source, open innovation is cap-

tured by two components (Keupp and Gassmann, 2009): search breadth and search

depth. Following the established approach set forth by Laursen and Salter (2006), we

define search breadth as the variety of external knowledge sources used by a firm for in-

novation purposes and search depth as the number of different sources from which a firm

draws deep knowledge through frequent and sustained interactions. Through search

breadth, innovative start-ups interact with a variety of external actors who have access

to different knowledge sets that may not be available from internal sources, but are re-

quired for commercializing their innovations (Classen et al., 2012; Grandi and Grimaldi,