Promoting entrepreneurial intentions for academic scientists: combining the social cognition theory and theory of planned behaviour in broadly-defined academic entrepreneurship

TLDR

The study investigates how individual academic output, prior commercialization experience, institutional reputation, and entrepreneurial support policies shape academic scientists’ intentions to spin‑offs, patenting, licensing, and consulting through Theory of Planned Behaviour. The authors built a framework integrating reciprocal determinism from social cognition theory with TPB and tested it using partial least squares structural equation modeling on 272 Chinese university scholars. Results show that academic output and institutional reputation mainly drive spin‑off intentions, while prior commercialization experience and entrepreneurial support policies influence all entrepreneurial activities, with subjective norms, attitudes, and perceived control mediating these effects—insights that can guide university policy in China.

Abstract

Purpose Drawing on the social cognition theory, the purpose of this research is to explore how selected individual and organizational determinants, namely individual academic output (AO) and previous commercialization experience, organizational scientific reputation and entrepreneurial support policies (ESPs) influence their broadly-defined academic entrepreneurial intentions, involving spin-off intention (SOI), patenting and licensing intention (PLI), contract research and consulting intention (CCI) through theory of planned behaviour (TPB) modelling. Design/methodology/approach The current research constructs the framework by combining reciprocal determinism in the social cognition theory with TPB. To testify the hypotheses, partial least squares structural equational modelling (PLS–SEM) technique with 272 observations from Chinese universities was utilized. Findings The findings show that academic-related determinants, namely individual AO and organizational reputation (OR), are more likely to influence academic scientists' SOI through TPB modelling, while entrepreneurial-related determinants in terms of individual previous commercialization experience (PCE) and ESPs in higher education organizations are more influential for promoting behavioural intention to all kinds of academic entrepreneurship activities through TPB modelling. The more formal academic entrepreneurship involvement (engaging in creating spin-offs) is better explained through TPB modelling, especially the continuous mediating effects of subjective norms and entrepreneurial attitude and perceived behavioural control are more effective on spin-off activities. In addition, subjective norms are more influential in mediating relationships between individual or organizational antecedents and academic entrepreneurial intentions in the Chinese context. Originality/value Combining the social cognition theory and TPB, this study first investigated how individual intentions to engage in broadly-defined academic entrepreneurial activities are promoted through TPB modelling. The results, relating to the divergence of different determinants shaping different academic entrepreneurial intentions through various paths in TPB modelling, will provide insight into university managers and policymakers to improve academic entrepreneurship engagement in the Chinese context.