Looking at the spin-off process through a social information processing lens: a systematic literature review

This work contributes to the field of Academic Entrepreneurship by providing a theory-driven explanation of the spin-off creation process. It adopts the theoretical lens of entrepreneurship as a process by considering three main phases: Opportunity Identification, Entrepreneurial Intentions and spin-off creation. Moreover, it looks at the role of individual and organizational factors in the process and adopts the Social Information Processing Theory's theoretical lens. Based on a Systematic Literature Review (SLR), we perform a thematic analysis to understand the more considered individual and organizational variables and classify them into two macro-dimensions and nine dimensions. Moreover, we use a narrative analysis to understand how each process’ phase has been studied and which variables have been most considered. We obtain a conceptual framework, hypothesizing a circular model of the process and considering the impact of the most studied individual and organizational variables. Finally, we propose a research agenda for the mechanisms that should be investigated in future research.