Universities are increasingly expected to engage in entrepreneurial activities that extend beyond their traditional missions of research and teaching. Academic spin-offs (ASOs) play a central role in this transformation by turning scientific knowledge into innovative applications with societal and economic impact. Operating at the intersection of academic, commercial, and public spheres, their development is shaped by a complex interplay of contextual dynamics that reach beyond individual motivations or institutional frameworks.

This dissertation explores how these contextual dynamics influence the emergence and evolution of academic spin-offs and seeks to advance a more comprehensive understanding of academic entrepreneurship and the conditions that enable or constrain effective knowledge transfer from universities to society.

Author: Julian Widhalm

Greentech startups help drive the transition toward a circular and regenerative economy, but they face a high-stakes timing choice: enter early as technology leaders or follow later with more robust and scalable solutions. This dissertation asks when each path pays off by looking at practical signals founders and investors can observe, from technology maturity and regulatory shifts to ecosystem readiness, funding dynamics, and stakeholder expectations. Rather than promising a one-size-fits-all answer, it aims to offer clear signposts and decision cues that help teams choose the right moment to commit and scale.

Author: Theophil Kroller

Author: Camilla Reis

The mobility sector is facing an unprecedented transformation towards less carbon-intensive and highly efficient passenger mobility and freight transportation systems and therefore seeking for the emergence of new business models (BMs) as well as the innovation of already existing ones. In this thesis, a systematic literature review, case study research, and qualitative content analysis will be applied to gain expertise on extant and novel BMs, analyze implications of new technologies/services on BMs, and identify related scenarios for the future.

Author: Florian Ratz

Over the last years the concept of sustainable development has more and more been addressed by the business sector. Innovative as well as sustainable business models are needed to achieve both economic and environmental goals. The dissertation project will focus on sustainable business models of start-ups in order to better understand how they operate and what the drivers for developing these business models are. Using a cross-industry sample covering start-ups showing notable sustainable activities, this study aims to analyse the characteristics of their business model. 

Author: Martin Glinik

Small enterprises (SE) increasingly face a competitive business environment, where they have to compete with firms of any size. Furthermore, a small enterprise is not just a small version of a large enterprise (LE). Which is why SEs business models significantly differ from LEs business models. In a qualitative study small enterprises in business-to-business markets are researched. The purpose of the study is to find factors that, according to literature, influence the elements of SEs business models most and to analyze to what degree those factors are present in the sample cases.

Author: Fabian Pirker

Author: Thomas Salzmann