Are Entrepreneurial Intentions and Open Innovation complements or substitutes for eliciting activities towards the market commercialization of academic breakthrough technologies?

This paper investigates the interplay between open innovation activities and entrepreneurial intentions in the commercialization process of research results originating from academia. Through qualitative case study research, we identify theoretical mechanisms through the qualitative analysis of five case studies. Our results show that inbound and coupled open innovation activities compensate for lower entrepreneurial intentions among academically oriented scientists. However, establishing partnerships remains challenging, particularly in pre-prototyping phases. Nevertheless, our findings point towards social entrepreneurial intentions as fruitful avenues for stimulating entrepreneurial behaviour in academic scientists.