Spin-off design as an organizational practice: a methodological approach

Marketing the results of research carried out within publicly funded scientific institutions (universities, laboratories, research centers, etc.) is widely considered by decision-makers as a sustainable base for developing and stimulating business growth. Experience shows that small, innovative enterprises split off from big industries or academic bodies are the element that links together research and the business environment; their creation process represents a perfect field for applying the Enterprise Engineering apparatus. Such enterprises can assume the risk of transforming an entrepreneurial idea into industrial prototypes without which it is impossible to evaluate the commercial potential of research results. This mechanism is implemented via spin-offcompanies. This paper focuses its analysis on the creation of academic spin-offs as one of the most widespread ways to bring research results to the market place, and also represents a powerful instrument of their internationalization strategy for universities. The main aim of the work is to identify the main elements raised by the creation of such companies, from the point of view of both public and academic authorities. The article proposes to consider key properties of university and industrial spin-offs as business units with flexible organizational form in tight connection with the formal modeling approach of the Enterprise Ontology and DEMO methodology, which are based on the Language-Action Perspective. For the analysis, the authors apply the concept of the transactions mechanism and a particular enterprise design methodology. As a result of the research, the paper proposes the main elements of a spin-off reference model constructed using the DEMO methodology means and it describes future directions of this work.