Paths of commercial knowledge: Forms and consequences of university–enterprise synergy in scientist-sponsored firms

This article examines paths of commercial learning, where the environment is perceived as multi-referent and pluralistic. The informationally rich category of scientist-entrepreneurs constitutes our research terrain. This group represents the acme of strong science and enterprise interaction. Data from a written questionnaire and extensive oral interviews of 41 people and information from four laboratory–enterprise micro-studies, form the basis of our description and conclusions. Three paths of commercial knowledge emerge—one associated with a group labelled “Academics”, another connected to an ensemble dubbed “Pioneers” and still another path linked to a cohort christened “Janus”. These groups diverge in terms of four factors: (1) degrees of university–enterprise synergy; (2) degrees of university–business tension; (3) degrees of relative autonomy of the scientific field; and (4) the presence of a particular mode of university–enterprise coordination. We speculate that certain paths prove more stable and effective than others in the generation and diffusion of commercial knowledge. Our discovery of multiple paths within the commercial knowledge process, occurring in a multi-referent, pluralistic environment challenges the radical contextualisation of science ‘mode 2’ message, which purports to observe a significant lowering of the boundaries between science and industry and society, or even the demise of the said differentiations and boundaries.