From Research to Manufacturing, Entrepreneurial Implications for a Scientist in a Research-Based Young Venture Moving Towards Serial Production – A Case Study

Abstract

“This final goal for a researcher is to get an acknowledgement for his or her research in the academic community, whereas for a businessperson the primary driving force is profit and financial benefit” (Siegel, Waldman, & Link, 2003) Traditionally, university research and business have widely been considered separated in terms of actors involved in each field. Scientists and researchers on the one side, business people and manufacturing managers on the other. With the ongoing rise of academic entrepreneurship through which university knowledge is transferred into businesses, those boundaries have become blurry. Researchers do not only find value in understanding, but the commercialisation and creation of wider societal impact becomes a more and more attractive goal. Thus, some researchers become active entrepreneurs involved in commercialisation projects. Arguably, having pursued a career in academia has strong influence on the individual and its behaviour. Throughout this case study, I find that the main challenges for the scientist/ entrepreneur in a specific venture context (strong dependence on researcher in technology and manufacturing, lack of market knowledge, limited time capacity of the scientist, simultaneous development of R&D and production/market). Consequently, it is shown how the scientist’s past is related to the effectiveness of transforming research to production (more explorative mindset, strong scientific and weak industrial network, perception of the role of manufacturing for the future business). Finally, based on the research, I give guiding towards overcoming the challenges in the specific case and the scientific past of the scientist/ entrepreneur: creating structure, strengthening communication, understanding of customer demand, separation of leadership and management, focus on internal learning within the organisation to use existing human resources, and to integrate external knowledge through partnerships, new employees and so forth in order to fill knowledge gaps inside of the organisation. As such, this in-depth case study of a Swedish venture founded on scientific knowledge contributes to the understanding of the role of the scientist/ entrepreneur in the context of transferring explorative R&D processes to exploitative manufacturing, a field to be investigated more broadly in future research over time.