What turns knowledge into innovative products? The role of entrepreneurship and knowledge spillovers

Joern H. Block, Roy Thurik, Haibo Zhou

Research output: Journal PublicationArticlepeer-review

98 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship seeks to explain the fundamentals and consequences of entrepreneurship with respect to economic performance. This paper uses the knowledge spillover theory to explain different innovation outcomes. We hypothesize that a high rate of entrepreneurship facilitates the process of turning knowledge into new-to-the-market innovation but has no effect on the relationship between knowledge and new-to-the-firm innovation. Our results using European country-level and pooled OLS, fixed- and random-effects regressions show that a high rate of entrepreneurship increases the chances that knowledge will become new-to-the-market innovation. The findings highlight the importance of Schumpeterian entrepreneurship in the process of the commercialization of knowledge. We discuss the implications for entrepreneurship and innovation policy.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)693-718
Number of pages26
JournalJournal of Evolutionary Economics
Volume23
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2013
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Commercialization of knowledge
  • Community innovation survey
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Innovation
  • Knowledge spillovers
  • Patents

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Business,Management and Accounting
  • Economics and Econometrics

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