The technological imprinting of educational experiences on student startups

• Published in: Research policy Vol. 53; no. 2; p. 104940
• Main Authors: Dalziel, Margaret, Basir, Nada
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01.03.2024
• Subjects: Exposure; Imprinting; Student entrepreneurship; Student startups; Technological distance; I25 Education and Economic Development; Patents; O34 Intellectual Property and Intellectual Capital; O33 Technological Change and Consequences: Diffusion Processes; Imprinting; Student entrepreneurship; Technological distance; Exposure; O31 Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives; Student startups
• ISSN: 0048-7333; 1873-7625
• DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2023.104940

The literature suggests that the startups of de novo entrepreneurs are disadvantaged, but many of the world's leading firms have been founded by students and recent graduates. We hypothesize that academic and industry-based educational experiences shape the innovative activity of student startups and use patent data to measure technological proximity between the patent portfolios of influencers and startups. We find that indirect exposure to the research and development activities of the students' university departments and work term employers results in technological imprinting. Influencer and entrepreneur capabilities affect the magnitude of the imprinting effect: student ventures are technologically more proximate to highly ranked university departments and to more innovative work term employers, and the students' software skills impact their ability to invent in proximity to their work term employer. We also find that multiple layers of imprints are complements, not substitutes. Exposure to inventive activities, even when indirect and brief, results in multiple capabilities-moderated layers of imprints. •We show the imprinting of educational experiences on student startups.•Entrepreneurs are STEM graduates; startups are venture capital-financed.•University and work term employer R&D influences startup inventive activity.•Greater imprinter and imprintee capabilities lead to stronger imprinting effects.•Multiple layers of imprint are complements, not substitutes.