Student Ventures: A New Organizational Form in the University Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

Student ventures represent a significant and increasing volume of entrepreneurial activity in the university entrepreneurial ecosystem. Still, we lack in-depth understanding of the specific nature of these ventures and how they differ from another organizational form in this ecosystem—namely, academic spin-offs. This study maps the resource pools and institutional logics of student ventures, as well as the legal frameworks and labels that apply to them, to explore whether student ventures can be considered a new organizational form. To do so, we use hand-collected survey, interview, and secondary data on student ventures at Ghent University, Belgium. We propose that student ventures are characterized by specific resource pools, institutional logics, and legal frameworks and labels, implying that they clearly meet the criteria of a new organizational form. Furthermore, we discuss how these characteristics differ from those of academic spin-offs. The uniqueness of student ventures has important implications as specific attention to this new organizational form may be required to unleash the full potential of universities’ entrepreneurial ecosystems.