Journal of trade science vol 9 no2 6 2021 spin offs academic enterprise from universities around the world and the problems posed to vietnam's higher education

Journal of trade science vol 9 no2 6 2021 spin offs academic enterprise from universities around the world and the problems posed to vietnam's higher education Journal of trade science vol 9 no2 6 2021 spin offs academic enterprise from universities around the world and the problems posed to vietnam's higher education

Vu Thanh Tu ANH - Fulbright University in Vietnam, USA

Le Xuan BA - Centural Institude for Economic Managerment, Vietnam

Hervé B BOISMERY - University of La Reuinion, France

H Eric BOUTIN - Toulon Var University, France

Nguyen Thi DOAN - Vietnam Learning Promotion Association, Vietnam

Haasis HANS - Dietrich - Institute of Shipping Economics and Logistics (isl) Bremen - Germany

Le Quoc HOI - National Economic University, Vietnam

Nguyen Thi Bich LOAN - Thuong mai University, Vietnam

Nguyen Hoang LONG - Thuong mai University, Vietnam

Nguyen MAI - Vietnam Economist Association, Vietnam

Duong Thi Binh MINH - University of Economics HoChiMinh City, Vietnam

Hee Cheon MOON - Korean Trade Research Association, South Korea

Bui Xuan NHAN - Thuong mai University, Vietnam

Luong Xuan QUY - Vietnam Economicst Association, Vietnam

Nguyen Van Song - Vietnam National University of Agriculture

Nguyen TAM - California State University, USA

Truong Ba THANH - University of Danang, Vietnam

Dinh Van THANH - Institude for Trade Research, Vietnam

Do Minh THANH - Thuong mai University, Vietnam

Le Dinh THANG - University of Québec à Trois Riviéres, Canada

Tran Dinh THIEN - Vietnam Institute of Economics, Vietnam

Nguyen Quang THUAN - Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, Vietnam

Le Nhu TUYEN - Grenoble École de Managment, France

Washio TOMOHARU - Kwansei Gakuin University, Japan

Zhang YUJIE - Tsinghua University, China

THE MEMBERS

EDITOR IN CHIEF DINH VAN SON DEPUTY EDITOR IN CHIEF

SECRETARY OF EDITORIAL OFFICE

PHAM MINH DAT EDITOR IN ENGLISH NGUYEN THI LAN PHUONG EDITORIAL SCIENTIFIC COUNCIL

Dinh Van SON - Thuong mai University, Vietnam - President

Pham Vu LUAN - Thuong mai University, Vietnam - Vice President

Nguyen Bach KHOA - Thuong mai University, Vietnam - Deputy President

Trade Science

C O N T E N T S

1 Trang, T T T - The impact of working capital management on the financial performance of

manufacturing companies: a context of plastic companies in Vietnam

2 Viet, N H and Duc, D L - A research on the Impact of Organizing Strategic Market

Implementation on Business Performance of Hanoi Trade Corporation

3 Thao, T V and Huyen, V T - The Impacts of Linkages on the Development of Vietnam's

Supporting Industry in the Context of the Covid-19: Approach to the Inter-Sector Balance Sheet

Method

4 Huyen, L T - The Impact of Internal Factors on the Profitability of Listed Food Producing

Companies in Vietnam

5 Nhan, N T T and Duong, V T - A study on student satisfaction in tourism industry-specific

training programs

6 Hieu, H M - Study on Factors Affecting the Choice of Logistics Service Provider of

Vietnamese Customers in the Covid-19 Discussion Period

7 Toan, D V - Spin-offs Academic Enterprise from Universities Around the World and the

Problems Posed to Vietnam's Higher Education

8 Uyen, N T U and Niem, L T - The Impact of Diversification on Idiosyncratic Risk of

Listed Companies on Vietnam Stock Market

9 Linh, N P and Khanh, C T - The Relationship of Absorption Capability, Cross-Channel

Integration Capability and Firm Performance of Retail Enterprises

10 Uyen, N T U and Niem, L T - The Impact of Diversification on Idiosyncratic Risk

of Listed Companies on Vietnam Stock Market

11 Nhung, D T H - Studying the Effect of Goodwill on the Market Value of Companies

Page

3 10

26 39 48 61 70 83 97 108

ISSN 1859-3666

1 Introduction

After World War II, the education and training

of highly qualified human resources and scientific

research have always been considered the primary

missions of higher education institutions (HEIs)

For the last three decades, the delivery and transfer

of research findings has been considered the third

mission In particular, forming a Spin-off

enter-prise, promoting business start-ups to

commercial-ize has become a phenomenon that many scholars

are interested in researching and is considered the

fourth mission of HEIs (Kretz and Sá, 2013; Boffo

and Cocorullo, 2019) This transition requires a

redefinition of values, organizational structure,

uni-versity governance policies and mechanisms Now,

universities have formed connections between

aca-demic entrepreneurs and society These connections are formed through many modes of knowledge transfer, technology transfer and commercialization through the operations of enterprises that are derived from technologies, research results, and participation of individual scientists in the universi-ties These enterprises are collectively referred to as

“Spin-offs academic enterprises” or “Spin-offs” Promoting entrepreneurship, forming Spin-offs enterprises is considered a key mechanism for HEIs

to perform the third mission This is also considered

a characteristic of the current university model -entrepreneurial university (Chang et al., 2016; Dinh Van Toan, 2020)

Governments of countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

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SPIN-OFFS ACADEMIC ENTERPRISE FROM

UNIVERSITIES AROUND THE WORLD AND THE

PROBLEMS POSED TO VIETNAM'S HIGHER

EDUCATION

Dinh Van Toan University of Economics and Business - VNU Email: dinhvantoan@vnu.edu.vn

Received: 1 st October 2020 Revised: 17 th November 2020 Approved: 24 th November 2020

T he article focuses on Spin-offs companies and the policies supporting these enterprises from

uni-versities in a number of countries around the world Based on published academic research and results of research on the current situation in Vietnamese universities, this article raises issues of concern about the policy and institutional reform of Vietnam's universities in the current context In addition to the need for institutional reform and a change in the environment for business development from universities, comprehensive autonomy for universities to innovate organizing structure, encourage startups and promote commercialization is an urgent issue

Keywords: Academic enterprise, Spin-offs, Spin-off enterprise, entrepreneur university, university education JEL Classifications: I20, I23, I29

see Spin-offs as a way to promote regional

develop-ment This push is performed through fostering

net-working between laboratories, research and

busi-ness, fostering new technologies and creating a

dynamic environment that supports entrepreneurs

Spin-offs receive additional attention for their role

as an intermediary among connected research

com-munities between universities, industry and society

Many spin-offs have research or consulting

con-tracts with close ties to their parent organization

(Callan, 2001) Spin-offs not only make a

signifi-cant contribution to business operations as noted in

the US, this large number of enterprises is the most

vivid mechanism for commercialization of

knowl-edge and technology created in their parent

institu-tions - the universities Therefore, the study of

Spin-offs from HEIs has great significance in the context

of a paradigm shift from traditional university to

entrepreneurial university These enterprises

pro-mote the transfer and commercialization of

scientif-ic research products and start-up activities in

univer-sities (Dinh Van Toan, 2020)

This article presents the results of the review of

published documents worldwide on Spin-off

enter-prise and the survey results on business

develop-ment and related policies in Vietnam in 2018 and

2019 Survey results show that there is no officially

disclosed data and information in Vietnam about

Spin-offs from HEIs However, analyzing the

short-comings of policies in university education and the

current situation of transferring and

commercializ-ing scientific research results from universities, as

well as some lessons from policy from some

coun-tries around the world help to recognize more

deeply the problems posed in Vietnam in the context

of promoting university autonomy,

knowledge-based socio-economic development

2 Overview of studies on Spin-off enterprises

In the past three decades, there have been many

studies by academia and the OECD on the process

of forming and developing Spin-offs Spin-offs are

the name given to a category of enterprises formed

and developed by technology from public

organi-zations The "Spin-off" phenomenon has appeared since the early 1980s in many countries around the world The research on this type of business has a wide scope, which includes the association with the parent organizations which are public organiza-tions and HEIs According to Callan (2001), there

is no general definition of Spin-offs in worldwide literature and technology policy This term is used quite loosely, but generally refers to new, small businesses using high technology or in-depth knowledge with intellectual capital originating from a public university or research institution (Djokovic et al., 2008) Academic studies also agree that spin-offs are a typical form of new busi-nesses created to commercialize intellectual prop-erty generated by research institutions and univer-sities, where employees can be seconded or trans-ferred from a research institution to a new

compa-ny (Isabelle, 2014)

With the aim of developing a generally accepted definition, the OECD conducted a survey on percep-tions about Spin-offs enterprises for member coun-tries The options are any new company that: (1) has

a founder from a public sector or university; (2) formed from licensing technology from a public university or research institution (institute, center); (3) has a student or alumni as one of the founders; (4) started in a technology incubator or technology park affiliated with the public sector or a university; (5) having a national university or laboratory under-taking equity investments The list of options above may not be comprehensive and may not be satisfac-tory for all countries For example, the Government

of Canada proposes to consider Spin-offs to include

a public organization directly setting up a company

to provide a test product or service; Some analysts want to clarify the difference between companies that have received support from the parent organiza-tion and those that have completely left the parent organization without receiving any help to pursue the project In general, the views have created con-ceptual consistency in spin-off studies with flexibil-ity and natural diversflexibil-ity in these types of

enterpris-es As such, there is a distinction between the

com-panies that have shares held by the parent

organiza-tion in the public sector which are called Spin-offs,

and companies that are licensed to technology from

the public entity but have no owner’s equity from

the parent organization - known as Spin-outs

(Callan, 2001)

In addition to Callan’s, many of the studies by

prominent scholars such as: Ndonzuau et al (2002);

Bekkers et al (2006); Konrad and Truffer (2006);

Rasmussen (2008); Sætre et al (2009); Wright et al

(2009); Erden and Yurtseven (2012) and Isabelle

(2014) have analyzed the theory and presented

empirical data on the spin-offs formation, the

sup-port policies from the governments and universities

in different countries In particular, Ndonzuau et al

has identified four stages of spin-offs from

univer-sity that were associated with the technology

valu-ation process as well as the original ideas, the

qual-ity of the business projects to the formation and

development of the Spin-offs The four-stage model

identifies various changes that research results must

go through in order to have the end result in

eco-nomic value creation: research results → business

ideas → projections of new venture project →

com-pany spin-off → economic value (Ndonzuau et al.,

2002) Recently, Borges et al (2013) pointed out

that university, entrepreneur and technology are the

three main elements of the "spin-off" process from

the university The study of Boffo and Cocorullo

(2019) on Spin-offs in Italian universities further

clarifies the theory and practice about the strong

development of this type of enterprise from

univer-sities In the entrepreneurial university model,

Spin-offs have become an important component

(Dinh Van Toan, 2020)

Regarding factors influencing Spin-offs

devel-opment, the study by Saetre et al (2009) examined

the similarities and differences of Spin-offs from

three Norwegian countries, USA and Sweden The

results showed that four important components are:

university relations; policies and support

mecha-nisms from the government; relations with

indus-tries; relations with venture capitalists and other funding sources In Vietnam, survey results from universities in 2018 and in-depth interviews with managers at public and private universities show that there is no official data on Spin-offs The results

of the business formation stages from HEIs are very limited (Dinh Van Toan, 2019) Therefore, in addi-tion to business formaaddi-tion results, the article focuses

on two main related issues: government policy and the role of universities and academic entrepreneurs

in formation and development of Spin-offs from Vietnamese universities From these results, the issues posed to policy-makers and governance in higher education will be pointed out towards the goal of reforming policies and mechanisms to accel-erate the process of formation and completion of the organizational model of Spin-offs enterprises in Vietnam

3 Spin-off enterprises from university: for-mation process, features and role

For HEIs, Spin-offs can be conceptualized as companies that take on new technology and evolve from universities through intellectual property com-mercialization and transfer of technology Pirnay et

al (2003) define Spin-offs as newly created compa-nies to commercially exploit some of the knowledge, technology or research results developed in a univer-sity Pattnaik et al (2014) summarized some defini-tions from researchers as shown in Table 1 The sum-mary table shows that the most common characteris-tics of Spin-offs from the university are: a separate legal entity; is not an extension of or controlled by a HEI; performs business through the extraction of knowledge from or pursuing academic activities in schools; and is aimed at generating profits and com-mercializing the technology (Table 1)

Boffo and Cocorullo (2019), when studying the formation and strong development of Spin-offs in Italian universities, claimed that the Spin-offs from universities can be considered as an enterprise founded by individuals which are former employees

of a parent organization-the university-whose core technology was transferred from the parent

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zation From the above studies, the distinctly

identi-fiable signs of a newly established Spin-off

enter-prise compared to conventional enterenter-prise are

shown in Table 2

Spin-offs have an important role in

socio-eco-nomic development First, these companies are the

bridge to attract investment, promote technology

transfer and commercialize research results from

universities to the market In practice, many

research projects and tasks prior to the formation of

Spin-offs can be research contracts or consulting

with close relationships with parent organizations

-the university Spin-offs are now -the quickest

path-ways for ideas and technologies from university

scientists to be commercially exploited (Callan,

2001) Theoretical and practical research has shown

that the commercialization of ideas from

universi-ties in general requires the continuous participation

of academic inventors, so these companies are seen

as the most effective way for commercialization in

universities

With a decisive role in promoting

commercial-ization, Spin-offs have become an important

com-ponent of the entrepreneurial university model

(Dinh Van Toan, 2020) According to Saetre et al,

the indirect effects of spin-offs may be even more

impactful than the direct effects listed above Examples of indirect contributions include: attract-ing and retainattract-ing quality lecturers, attractattract-ing fund-ing for commercialization (especially high-risk projects), increasing research productivity of lectur-ers, student training, positively impacts regional economic diversification and development (Saetre

et al., 2009)

According to Callan (2001), in addition to the important position of enterprises in innovation at universities, developing Spin-offs is also part of a broader package of government policies to promote

an entrepreneurial environment, fosters links between universities with industries and the public sector As such, the Spin-offs filled the gap between research activities from university, from the public sector to the private and corporate sectors Governments also use Spin-offs to encourage the connection of research laboratories with business, thereby fostering the development of industries with new technologies and creating dynamic environ-ments to support entrepreneurs

4 Results and experiences from other countries

Increase the number of Spin-offs formed:

In Europe: UK researchers show that the number

of these companies has increased continuously from

Table 1: Some definitions of Spin-offs from university

Sources: Pattnaik et al., 2014

161 in 2004 to 187 in 2006 From 2004 to 2006, of

these companies, there were 24 companies with a

successful initial public offering (Wright et al.,

2009) In the Netherlands, according to Bekkers et

al (2006), in 2006 alone, 499 Spin-offs enterprises

from universities were established In Italy, between

2000 and 2007, an average of 100 Spin-offs were

formed from new business projects each year By

the end of 2015, there were 1,254 Spin-offs

estab-lished from universities and research organizations,

in which, the total number of Spin-offs established

from universities in the years 2011-2014 is 1,115

(Boffo and Cocorullo, 2019)

America: In Canada, Rasmussen (2008) showed

that if the total number of Spin-offs from universi-ties and hospitals in the country in 1999 was only

471, by 2001 it increased to 680 then by 2003 this figure had reached 876 Although the data are incomplete, the statistics show that the US is the leading country in the formation of Spin-offs based

on research in the field Erden and Yurtseven (2012) suppose: in the US, according to the report of 132 leading universities, there were 279 companies established in 1998; if we include companies

found-ed by students, lecturers, and alumni that are not licensed from universities, the numbers are much

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Table 2: Signs of Spin-off enterprises founded from universities

Source: Compiled by author

larger In 20 years since the ratification of the

Bayh-Dole Act (1980-1999), Spin-offs contributed $ 33.5

billion to the economy and created 280,000 jobs On

average, each year more than 200 Spin-off

compa-nies are registered from 132 universities Also

according to Erden and Yurtseven, it can be

estimat-ed that within the 10 years since the early 1990s, the

number of Spin-offs established only in relation to

the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and

Cambridge University has reached thousands, of

which are formed mainly by alumni (Erden and

Yurtseven, 2012)

In Asia, Singapore is one of the most active

countries in developing the Spin-offs company

model over the past two decades In just 5 years

(2000-2004), 54 Spin-offs were established from

National University of Singapore (NUS) with abun-dant investment from the government, along with significantly improved mechanisms and administra-tive procedures (Dinh Van Toan, 2019)

The aggregate data on the number of Spin-off companies established from universities in some countries around the world are listed in Table 3 These are incomplete but partly illustrate the strong development in terms of the number of Spin-offs from universities over the past two decades

Government supporting policies and mecha-nisms:

Around the world, government innovation poli-cies have a decisive impact on the spin-offs phe-nomenon The policies with the strongest impact are the Bayh-Dole Act in the US and the Intellectual

Table 3: The number of Spin-offs from a number of representative universities

Source: Compiled by author

Property Transfer Act from a technology

corpora-tion (a state agency) to universities in the UK in the

1980s These policies provided US and UK

univer-sities with rights to their inventions based on

gov-ernment-sponsored research, together with

responsi-bility to commercialize their technology According

to Saetre et al (2009), similar changes have occurred

in most European and Asian countries The impact

of the Bayh-Dole Act allowing universities to sell

patents on federal government-funded research has

rapidly increased the number of technology transfer

offices (TTOs) But not only is the number of TTOs

increasing, licensing offices (TLOs) are also

increasing rapidly with patent publications, patent

applications, licensing agreements and royalties

The 2006 Association of University Technology

Managers Inc (AUTM) survey found that: in just

one decade (1996-2006), the total number of patents

filed by American universities quadrupled from

4,000 to nearly 16,000 (Saetre et al., 2009)

In addition to the afore-mentioned major laws

and policies, other changes in supporting policy

have been introduced in the US and some countries

to promote research and development cooperation

between HEIs, the industries and the private sector

to form Spin-offs A few of the main changes are:

revising patent policies to expand the technology

market, developing cooperative research and

devel-opment (R&D) associations; loosening new rules

and guidelines on the disposition of

government-owned intellectual property; supporting business

formation and development

Spin-offs often involve new technology, with the

development potential but also difficulties in

acquir-ing capital and business expansion As such,

govern-ment funding becomes even more important in

terms of capital The US government and the

gov-ernments in Europe have developed mechanisms for

financial assistance in the form of grants and public

grants Since 1982, the US government has

imple-mented Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs to finance high-risk R&D projects with commercial potential, allowing academic founders

to overcome financial hurdles through small busi-ness support programs In 2004, this program dis-bursed more than 2 billion USD to support the establishment of Spin-offs and by 2009 has awarded

a total of 112,500 companies with a total budget of 26.9 billion USD (Dinh Van Toan, 2019) In Europe, the first action plan for higher education innovation has funded the growth of spin-offs from universities (Meyer, 2003)

In Turkey, according to Erden and Yurtseven (2012), the commercialization of knowledge and science has been recognized as an important policy issue Law No 5746 focuses on this issue and pro-vides financial incentives to companies doing R&D and initial capital to support academic entrepreneurs

to form research-based businesses The Ministry of Science, Technology and Industry (MoSTI) pro-vides Seed Funding to successful entrepreneurs with technology transfer developed in universities

In Asia, Japan does not have many established Spin-offs but is a typical case in Asia with higher education that has developed in the trend of interna-tionalization since the 1990s The most common activities in university-private partnership include research cooperation, technology transfer and human resources through the “TAMA Association” project located in the high-technology park man-aged by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry In this Association, by the end of 2007, there were 355 enterprises operating with more than

100 research and development departments and 32 participating researchers from universities Singapore is also a country with successful policies

to develop higher education towards entrepreneur-ship and innovation over the past two decades In 5 years (from 1998 to 2003), more than 70 Spin-offs

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were established through incubation from National

University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological

University and other science and technology

research institutes (Dinh Van Toan, 2019)

In addition to drastic changes to the legal system

in the the US, UK and Singapore, other countries

have many ways to support academic entrepreneurs

and develop spin-offs from University Many

gov-ernments support universities and new businesses to

develop products and services based on high-risk

research results (Shane, 2004) Compiling from

their own research, Konrad and Truffer also point

out other policies from governments that focus on

solving and supporting key groups of problems as

follows (Konrad and Truffer, 2006):

- Regulations on the participation of teaching

staff in enterprises: Since 2000 onwards, the

work-ing time restrictions of university lecturers have

been reduced or temporarily left the teaching

posi-tions in some countries These rules facilitate both

participation in Spin-offs businesses and academic

research in the parent organization - the university

This has a positive impact on effective interactions

between parties in teaching, research, transfer and

commercialization activities;

- Regarding intellectual property rights, the

reg-ulations regarding intellectual property created by

publicly funded research still differ between

coun-tries: Some give the rights to researchers; Some give

to the organization; Royalties from intellectual

property rights are partly distributed among

researchers and organizations In some countries,

regulations have recently been changed primarily by

transferring property rights from individual

researchers to institutions with the increased

expec-tation of the economic potential In general, the

poli-cies have been revised to loosen regulations to

increase mutual trust, promote the formation of joint

ventures in research and guide the disposition of

government-owned intellectual property

- Academic evaluation criteria and procedures:

Changes in evaluation criteria at the individual, project or organizational level have a strong influ-ence on the scientific research system and business development due to policy that encourages and affects the choice of research faculty of the faculty The criteria for evaluating and rewarding commer-cialization have influenced researchers to engage in innovation, creativity and spin-off’s activities

The role of the university and academic entre-preneur:

According to Borges et al (2013), university, entrepreneur and technology are the three main ele-ments of the "spin-off" process from universities In which, entrepreneurs and technology used as the foundation for new joint ventures come from the universities University-born entrepreneurs (acade-mic entrepreneurs) often work for Spin-offs compa-nies or participate in research on technology used by Spin-offs Therefore, universities and academic entrepreneurs have an important role to play in the creation and development of Spin-offs:

Universities can provide support for the creation

of new business projects from university-sourced research and technologies or with participating aca-demic entrepreneurs Typical examples are: licens-ing and technology transfer office; office that assists new business projects with access to the university’s network of partners; activities to promote entrepre-neurship culture, financial aid, consulting or man-agement and sales courses; etc In particular, one of the main supporting tools universities help to com-mercialize and form Spin-offs is business incubator with a variety of business support services

Academic entrepreneurs are lecturers,

researchers, undergraduates or graduate students involved in the development and implementation of business related activities They may or may not leave university after a new business venture is cre-ated and become a spin-off company Many of them