Academic intrapreneurship for health care innovation: the importance of influence, perception, and time management in knowledge commercialization at a University’s Medical Centre

Academic intrapreneurship refers to the individual behaviours of scientists who depart from their customary research and education initiatives and become involved in knowledge commercialization without leaving academia. This paper aims to examine how academic intrapreneurs perceive and respond to organizational factors set by departments, faculties, schools, and university boards that influence knowledge transfer, the initiation of an internal project, and the collaboration with societal stakeholders. We employ an embedded case study approach to examine the role of perceived control and influence within the internal work environment of a knowledge commercialization process within the DiabetesStation, a healthcare innovation at the Erasmus Medical Center (MC), a university hospital in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. We used a semi-structured interview strategy and analyzed 12 individual respondent interviews. The results show that the relationship between academics and the Knowledge Commercialization Process within the DS at Erasmus MC was influenced by six factors (i.e., external collaboration, product quality, time availability, external financing, internal financing, and rewards and reinforcement). Our study highlights that the perception of- the academic intrapreneur’s control and influence seems to impact effectively transferring academic knowledge from academic institutions to the private sector for economic and societal benefit. The research results highlight three controllable areas of an academic institution’s internal work environment that can enhance the relationship between knowledge valorization and academic intrapreneurship—time availability, rewards and reinforcement, and internal financing.