Identifying Environmental Influencing Factors on the Growth of Research-Based Spin-Offs in Iran.

Research-based spin-off companies are new firms based on the exploitation of research results with the aim of transforming their technologies into new products and services. Spin-off companies are the building blocks of growing knowledge-based economy, and are a key component of the rapid growing sectors in the developed world. Recent studies have been shown that research-based spin-off companies are generally more successful than other forms of entrepreneurship. There are several factors affecting the creation and growth of spin-off companies. In this paper these factors have been classified into three major categories including environmental, personal and organizational variables. This study focused on investigating environmental factors affecting on the growth of Iranian research-based spin-offs. Incubators, supporters, marketing, geographic location, access to technology, and networking are some of the environmental factors which has been studied in this paper. After that all the categories divided to subcategories of these environmental factors. The findings of this study, based on in-depth interviews, indicate that the level of supports and characteristics of the incubators play an important role on the growth of research-based spin-off companies in Iran. The results show that absorbing supports from different resource is so important in growth stage. Incubators foster the development of a spin-off by providing know-how, advice as well as financial support and networking. Choose a proper location, proximity to incubator as well as regional factors (e.g., access to support, and networking) affect on the growth of research-based spin-offs. The growth rate is estimated with revenue, venture capital and the number of employees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]