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Fostering Female Entrepreneurship in Academic Spin-offs

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University Evolution, Entrepreneurial Activity and Regional Competitiveness

Part of the book series: International Studies in Entrepreneurship ((ISEN,volume 32))

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Abstract

We aim at analyzing female participation in Italian academic spin-offs using publically available data and a unique hand-collected database of all academic spin-offs set up in Italy from 2002 to 2007. We base our study on three complementary levels of analysis: macro, meso, and micro level. We show that the gender gap in academic spin-offs is relevant and that a certain degree of spatial heterogeneity—possibly reflecting cultural and environmental differences between Italian provinces—exists. Furthermore, our findings show a disadvantage of females in the startup funding phase: an unfavorable circumstance that reduces their chances of success and force them to create new businesses mainly in the service sector. Social relationships and empathy among females may help compensate their disadvantages and break down barriers to entrepreneurship.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    According to the European Commission, in science, gender bias can occur (1) in the characterization of scientific excellence, (2) in the criteria used to assess it, (3) in the choice of the explicit and implicit indicators for scientific excellence, (4) in the way the criteria are applied to males and females, (5) in the failure to integrate females in scientific networks, and (6) in the procedures through which criteria are applied to people. This gender bias in scientific excellence is one of the elements that prevent equal representation of females at all levels of science, and is an important reason why some countries have elected to implement targets and quotas.

  2. 2.

    This result does not contrast with the evidence that the modal province for spin-offs is Milan, since Milan, unlike Padua, has more than one university.

  3. 3.

    This consideration is evident for province, geographic area and university dummies, but also holds for industry dummies, since specific industries tend to develop in specific geographic areas.

  4. 4.

    Since over-dispersion tests provided mixed results, we decided to present robust standard errors in the table in order to mitigate the risk of basing our inference on underestimated standard errors due to over-dispersion. Basing inference on non-robust standard errors produced, however, similar results. We also estimated quasi-Poisson and negative binomial regression models. Results of these alternative models are qualitatively similar to those in the table and, thus, are not reported.

  5. 5.

    At the bottom of each model we report joint Wald tests for the overall significance of the estimated models to test for the hypothesis that all coefficients in the model apart from the intercept are equal to zero (Regression χ2). All the test statistics strongly reject the hypothesis that the conditional mean is constant and independent of the explanatory variables.

  6. 6.

    To simplify the model to be estimated, we have excluded the groups of dummy variables from the regression equations and decided to focus only on micro level variables.

  7. 7.

    The only exception is the insignificant coefficient of the female majority shareholder dummy in the count part of Model 5. However, this variable is still significant, as expected, in the zero-hurdle part of the model.

  8. 8.

    The negative relationship between the number of female shareholders and the capital invested by shareholders into the spin-off at startup should merely suggest an association rather than a real causal nexus.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information Engineering, Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Polytechnic University of Marche, Ancona, Italy

    Alessandra Micozzi & Francesca Micozzi

  2. Department of Management, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Pierpaolo Pattitoni

  3. The Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis (RCEA), Rimini, Italy

    Pierpaolo Pattitoni

Authors
  1. Alessandra Micozzi
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  2. Francesca Micozzi
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  3. Pierpaolo Pattitoni
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alessandra Micozzi .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA

    David Audretsch

  2. Augsburg University, Augsburg, Germany

    Erik Lehmann

  3. Technology Management, University of Bergamo, Bergamo, Italy

    Michele Meoli

  4. University of Bergamo, Bergamo, Italy

    Silvio Vismara

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Micozzi, A., Micozzi, F., Pattitoni, P. (2016). Fostering Female Entrepreneurship in Academic Spin-offs. In: Audretsch, D., Lehmann, E., Meoli, M., Vismara, S. (eds) University Evolution, Entrepreneurial Activity and Regional Competitiveness. International Studies in Entrepreneurship, vol 32. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17713-7_3

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