Scientific Knowledge and Regional Development: a bibliometric analysis of entrepreneurial productions

Abstract

Although research into entrepreneurship focuses on aspects inherent to entrepreneur’s figure, universities of this nature and knowledge transfer, the main issue that still permeates it is the scarcity of scientific studies that explore the entrepreneurial nature of the productions in terms of quality, dissemination and measurement, linked to regional development. The aim of this article is to measure the entrepreneurial nature of knowledge through Lotka’s law, in the regional development context. Considering bibliometry as the research’s methodological tool, the investigation of the materials collected on the Web of Science and Scopus Elsevier bases was subdivided into performance analysis, scientific mapping, Lotka distribution and qualitative analysis of the most relevant productions. It was concluded that Lotka's distributional index, if in isolation way, has weaknesses in dealing with the entrepreneurship level applied to regional development, especially with regard to the concept abstraction applied to this nature in productions and its complexity in the perception and treatment of the variables that make it up.

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OCT - DIC 2023Comuni@ccion: Revista de Investigación en Comunicación y Desarrollo, 14(4), 373-387
1Celso Suckow da Fonseca Federal Centre for Technological Education, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
a ORCID: 0000-0002-4434-5831 E-Mail: rebeca.Mest21@gmail.com
b ORCID: 0000-0002-8954-3508 E-Mail: herlander.afonso@cefet-rj.br
Recibido 03/08/2023
Aceptado 23/11/2023
Sección: Artículo de Revisión
Scientific Knowledge and Regional Development:
a bibliometric analysis of entrepreneurial
productions
Conocimiento científico y desarrollo regional: un análisis
bibliométrico de las producciones empresariales
Abstract
Although research into entrepreneurship focuses on
aspects inherent to entrepreneur’s gure, universities
of this nature and knowledge transfer, the main issue
that still permeates it is the scarcity of scientic
studies that explore the entrepreneurial nature of the
productions in terms of quality, dissemination and
measurement, linked to regional development. The aim
of this article is to measure the entrepreneurial nature
of knowledge through Lotka’s law, in the regional
development context. Considering bibliometry as the
research’s methodological tool, the investigation of the
materials collected on the Web of Science and Scopus
Elsevier bases was subdivided into performance
analysis, scientic mapping, Lotka distribution and
qualitative analysis of the most relevant productions.
It was concluded that Lotka’s distributional index, if
in isolation way, has weaknesses in dealing with the
entrepreneurship level applied to regional development,
especially with regard to the concept abstraction
applied to this nature in productions and its complexity
in the perception and treatment of the variables that
make it up.
Keywords: Academic Entrepreneurship, Scientic
Knowledge, Regional Development, Lotka’s Law.
Resumen
Aunque las investigaciones sobre el emprendimiento
se centran en aspectos inherentes a la gura del
emprendedor, las universidades de esta naturaleza y la
transferencia de conocim iento, el principal problema que
aún la impregna es la escasez de estudios cientícos que
exploren el carácter emprendedor de las producciones
en términos de calidad, difusión y medición, ya estén
vinculadas al desarrollo regional. El objetivo de este
artículo propone medir la naturaleza emprendedora del
conocimiento a través de la ley de Lotka en el contexto
del desarrollo regional. Considerando la bibliometría
como herramienta metodológica, la investigación de
los materiales recolectados en las bases de datos Web
of Science y Scopus Elsevier se subdividió en análisis
de desempeño, mapeo cientíco, distribución de
Lotka y análisis cualitativo de las producciones más
relevantes. Se llegó a la conclusión de que el índice
distributivo de Lotka, si se aplica de forma aislada,
presenta debilidades en el tratamiento del nivel de
emprendimiento aplicado al desarrollo regional,
especialmente en lo que se reere a la abstracción del
concepto aplicado a esta naturaleza en las producciones
y a su complejidad en el tratamiento y percepción de
las variables que la componen.
Palabras clave: Iniciativa Empresarial Académica,
Conocimiento Cientíco, Desarrollo Regional, Ley de
Lotka.
Cómo Citar:
Martins do Amaral, R., & Costa Alegre da Gama Afonso, H. (2023). Conocimiento cientíco y desarrollo regional: un análisis bibliométrico de las producciones empresariales.
Comuni@cción: Revista de Investigación en Comunicación y Desarrollo, 14(4), 373-387. https://doi.org/10.33595/2226-1478.14.4.955
Rebeca Martins do Amaral1,a, Herlander Costa Alegre da Gama Afonso2,b
DOI: 10.33595/2226-1478.14.4.955

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Introduction
Lately, entrepreneurship has been constantly present
in academic research. Several authors explore this
theme by bringing conceptual and practical results,
either specically or complementary to other studies
proposals (Markin et al., 2017; Skute, 2019; Phan Tan,
2021). From the traditional approach to those of hybrid
character, the vast opportunities that arouse the interest
of regional development researchers are notorious
due to the generation of value, expressed in culture,
knowledge and individual empowerment (Adelowo &
Surujlal, 2020; Forliano et al., 2021; Sarango-Lalangui
et al., 2018; Vera-Goméz et al., 2020).
Although various research approaches about
entrepreneurship and regional development have
been focusing on aspects like abilities, attitude and
entrepreneurial intention; role, impact and stimulant
points to the entrepreneurship; technological
entrepreneurial universities formation; academic
entrepreneurs presence and, transfer of knowledge and
technology itself, rare exceptions address whether, this
knowledge has an entrepreneurial character either in
quality, dissemination; and measurement terms or into
its proposals and implications (Brekke, 2020; Markin
et al., 2017; Moreira et al., 2013; Skute, 2019).
Since we understand the need and the challenge of
answering the gaps presented, the article proposes
to measure the entrepreneurial nature of scientic
knowledge by means Lotka’s law (Guedes & Borschiver,
2005). Thus, we consider that the fundamental
question permeates the scientic knowledge level on
entrepreneurship in academic productions related to
regional development.
Furthermore, the eld explored has an interlinearity
aspect aligned with emergent thematics, which are
‘knowledge’and‘entrepreneurship’, and this research
aims to contribute to a dierent interpretation of
traditional entrepreneurship, encouraging the use
of bibliometrics tools for the evaluation of shared
knowledge in scientic productions of regional
development.
Conceptual framework
Academic Entrepreneurship and Regional
Development
According Forliano et al. (2021), the innovative proposal
on entrepreneurial universities was encouraged by
studies in the 1990s that led to a new approach to
entrepreneurship and it would not be limited to the
business sphere, but would also penetrate the academic
context. Because of systemic environment in formation,
researchers has defended a eld interaction to economic
development for follow evolutions in this new context,
in which has triggered an academic adaptive process
(Sułkowski et al., 2019; Vekic et al., 2020).
In this way, the proposal of a third role aligned with the
traditional responsibilities of universities – teaching
and research – has become discussion point of new
studies (Wagner et al., 2021). This feature connects
to entrepreneurship that, as told by Siemieniuk (2016)
and Vekic al. (2020), can be considered a source
of economic multidimensional dynamism, capable
of generate wealth, innovation and sustainable
economic development. This ‘third mission’ argues
that university has crucial keys to economic changes
by knowledge creation, yielding economic growth
(Kochetkov et al., 2017).
On Lyken-Segoseben et al. (2020) perspectives,
the academic entrepreneurship can be regarded as
strategic orientation, result of impacts provided by
researches and its variety in knowledge. The activities
that constitute this function concern the creation of
revenues that adds to the institutions’ budgets, to the
start up of new companies, and to their contribution to
society’ development through knowledge production,
dissemination, and commercialization.
Moreover, providing the eective dissemination of
knowledge linked to academic proposes encourage
universities on partnership prospection with
stakeholders to a regional level (Brekke, 2020). In this
process, the learning and proactivity are extremely
relevant to strengthen the entrepreneurship ecosystem,
expanding their regional development outlooks from the
knowledge disseminated globally and, consequently,
stimulating the formulation of political projects that
propose changes in regional economies (Oliver et al.,
2020; Pugh et al., 2021).
Nevertheless, Adelowo and Surujlal (2020), and
Forliano et al. (2021) show concern about the
immersion of this entrepreneurial ideology within
scientic research. They explain discussions between
careful authors that argue about the possibility of
this path untwist the primary teaching and research
purpose by research institutions. One of these
reasons for that involve commercial gains potentials
those other entrepreneurial activities could instigate
on scientists and institutions, blocking university
autonomy and liberty.

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Scientic Knowledge and Regional Development: a bibliometric analysis of entrepreneurial productions
Conocimiento cientíco y desarrollo regional: un análisis bibliométrico de las producciones empresariales
In contrast, there are researchers that defend a balance
of this ‘third mission’ in learning and research. It can
be generating value to the universities, society and
government, and based on development (Zhang et al.,
2016; Skute, 2019; Vera Goméz et al., 2019). Therefore,
the need of empirical studies that approaches the
scientic entrepreneurship benets to as a whole
development is crucial, especially with regard to the
challenging emerging circumstances (Salomaa &
Caputo, 2021).
Entrepreneurial Knowledge in Bibliometrics Light
From the standpoint of Zhang et al. (2016), the role
played by knowledge has undergone signicant changes
since the genesis of endogenous growth model. In this
context, their spillover inuences externalities in favour
of regional economic growth (Kochetkov et al., 2017;
Vera-Gómez et al., 2019). Thus, Markin et al. (2017)
understand the need of reviewing the contributions that
researchers provide to develop new research agendas,
evaluated on positioning, quality, and impact, in order
to identify the main benets of the studies themes for
entrepreneurship and regional development.
Although the encouragement of innovation and
entrepreneurship presents joviality in scientic
productions, it is already a reality in academia if we
take into account the requirement of originality in
studies as a minimum degree of entrepreneurship.
This culminates in the assertive speech of the authors
Adelowo and Surujlal (2020) about the dependence of
futu re work s on the ability to implement new knowledge
to solve humanity’s issues in a creative way. Therefore,
this entrepreneurial nature of knowledge, disseminated
through academic productions, can be deemed a
synonym of productivity and competitiveness (Zhang
et al., 2020).
Given the notorious importance of stimulating an
entrepreneurial environment that promotes eective
dissemination of knowledge on behalf of scientic
development and solidity, Lotka’ law prospects
understanding the entrepreneurial aspect of knowledge
in scientic productions from the authors’ productivity
(Guedes & Borschiver, 2005; Krüger et al., 2018). In
brief, the bibliometric procedure measures knowledge
externalized in research through qualitative and
quantitative indicators (Gutiérrez-Salcedo et al., 2017).
This second law of Bibliometrics analyzes frequency of
productivity from the authors in terms of the available
academic productions. Taking into account the inverse
square law to nd the usefulness level of papers, the
amount ‘n’ scientists producing ‘x’ papers equals ‘n/x’.
Therefore, the smaller the result of this ratio is, the
lower their productivity is (Alvarado, 2002; Guedes &
Borschiver, 2005).
Methodology
To enable the study proposal, an innovative potential
application of Lotka’s Law was identied, since
the measurement of productivity per document and
author could dialogue with the pre-existing scientic
methodological parameters, bringing new reections
as to its use, impact and complementariness. In
addition, two studies (Forliano et al., 2021; Gutiérrez-
Salcedo et al., 2017) were chosen that approached some
bibliometric methodological procedures dierently for
reliability and novelty of the data analyzed.
This procedure contemplates the following phases:
establishing a guiding question that permeates the
entire study, from the search in the databases to its nal
conclusion; conducting a scientic productions’ search
of the chosen theme in the main databases, indexed
and globally recognized; determining inclusion and
exclusion criteria of the productions found, obtaining
the desired amount without compromising the purpose
of the study; analyzing the eligible articles within the
research proposal, according to the initial selection
criteria; and from the bibliometric review, clarifying
the results obtained based on Lotka concomitantly
to the complementary indicators chosen, the debate
between authors, the conclusion captured, and the
limitations in the production in question (Rodrigues et
al., 2019).
We highlight some observations: rstly, the
previous expressions academic entrepreneurship
OR entrepreneurial universit* AND regional OR
local development were included in the search elds
without the quotation marks (“ ”), which was the
most satisfactory option within the expectations of
the study, once the desired results were not obtained
when searching following the same patterns of the
rst base; secondly, these two bases were selected
due to their relevance and academic recognition, as
well as the high-quality volume of data available in
journals rened by global scientic criticism; nally,
all categories that did not include the objective to be
reached were dismissed, such as the eld of biological
sciences and health.

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Martins do Amaral, R., & Costa Alegre da Gama Afonso, H.
Results and discussions
Bibliometric measurement
Respectively, in the Web of Science and Scopus
databases, 12.342 and 801 documents were found.
After ltering, the number of documents was reduced
to 317 and 256. With the RStudio software (Aria &
Cuccurullo, 2021; R Core Team, 2021), an integrated
database was obtained with selected articles, removing
duplicates and yielding 556 documents from 2012 and
2021 for the bibliometric analysis. These documents
came from the production of 1364 authors from 864
institutions in 67 dierent countries.
Understanding the research that supported new studies
among authors in the timeframe investigated reveals
their interest in spreading knowledge, whether in a
radical or incremental manner (see Figure 1).
Figure 1.
Three-fields graphic
Meanwhile, the Top-10 productions and their authors,
ordered by citations/year’ number, were compiled in
Table 1, as well as the Top-10 most relevant authors in
documents’ quantity gathered in Table 2 below.
Table 1. Production ranking of authors per document according to the total citations
# Author Year Title
Total
citations
1
SIEGEL D; WRIGHT M
2015
Academic Entrepreneurship Time for a Rethink
227
2
GUERRERO M; CUNNINGHAM J;
URBANO D
2015
Economic Impact of Entrepreneurial Universities Activities: An
Exploratory Study of the United Kingdom
202
3 ABREU M; GRINEVICH V 2013
The Nature of Academic Entrepreneurship in the UK: Widening The
Focus on Entrepreneurial Activities
197
4
GUERRERO M; URBANO D;
FAYOLLE A; KLOFSTEN M;
MIAN S
2016 Entrepreneurial Universities Emerging Models in the New Social and
Economic Landscape
128
5
RASMUSSEN E; MOSEY S;
WRIGHT M
2014
The Influence of University Departments on the Evolution of
Entrepreneurial Competences in Spin-off Ventures
122
6 GUERRERO M; URBANO D 2013
Academics Startups Intentions and Knowledge Filters: An Individual
Perspective of The Knowledge Spillover Theory of Entrepreneurship
78
7
FINI R; RASMUSSEN E; SIEGEL
D; WIKLUND J
2018
Rethinking the Commercialization of Public Science From
Entrepreneurial Outcomes to Societal Impacts
60
8
COLOMBO M G; MEOLI M;
VISMARA S
2019
Signaling in Science-based IPOS: The Combined Effect of Affiliation
with Prestigious Universities Underwriters and Venture Capitalists
46
9 HEATON S; SIEGEL D; TEECE D 2019
Universities and Innovation Ecosystems: A Dynamic Capabilities
Perspective
32
10 CUNNINGHAM J; MENTER M 2020
Transformative Change in Higher Education: Entrepreneurial
Universities and High technology Entrepreneurship
10
Source: Aria and Cuccurullo, 2021

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Scientic Knowledge and Regional Development: a bibliometric analysis of entrepreneurial productions
Conocimiento cientíco y desarrollo regional: un análisis bibliométrico de las producciones empresariales
The social aspect of bibliometric composition explain
the interaction between studies and their authors
takes place (Figure 2) conrms Forliano et al. (2021)
perspective, in which a large number of the relevant
researchers act in a restricted way in their circles, and
there are still other isolated ones who could broaden
their exploratory horizons.
The same authors (Forliano et al., 2021) explain that the
amount of papers by a researcher determines the node
size and, at the same time, the amount of co-authorship
between close researchers constitutes studied elds
and their interaction. In this map (Figure 3), one can
identify the research eld in which these authors
cooperate through clusters distinguished by colours,
generating value in the network co-occurrence.
Furthermore, the world collaboration map (Figure
4) shows nations’ academic productivity, as well as
research collaborations. In fact, the most productive
countries are also the most economically developed,
implying higher levels of research collaboration.
Finally, the intellectual sphere comprises, from the
perspective of Gutiérrez-Salcedo et al. (2017), a
co-citation network analysis between documents
(see Figure 5) and suggests that, although authors
in red cluster appear to have a weaker connection –
represented by a single line between them, references
of all clusters are strongly correlated in the literature.
The second bibliometric law, Lotka, plays a key role
in the analysis of the entrepreneurship character of
academic productions, since it measures the frequency
of authors’ productivity through scientic documents
in a period, in terms of proportionality (see Figure
6); and Table 3 presents details on the proportion of
authors who collaborated in the publications.
An interesting fact occurs in the distribution of the
grouping of authors with ve, six and eight documents.
This singular conguration diers from the pattern
proposed by the inverse square law, highlighting
the importance of studying this phenomenon more
thoroughly (Guedes & Borschiver, 2005). Thus, the
proportional order of articles in terms of contribution
would be, respectively, 6 (2.26%), 8 (1%) and 5 (0.31%).
Table 2. The top 10 of most relevant authors according to the quantity produced
#
Author
H-Index
Total citations
Documents
Year
1
MEOLI M
7
221
8
2013
2
WRIGHT M
6
491
6
2012
3
VISMARA S
6
181
6
2013
4
GUERRERO M
5
429
8
2013
5
URBANO D
5
428
6
2013
6
RASMUSSEN E
5
300
6
2014
7
FINI R
5
116
6
2016
8
CUNNINGHAM J
4
243
6
2015
9
SIEGEL D
4
356
4
2015
10
OLMOS-PENUELA J
4
121
4
2014
Source. Aria and Cuccurullo, 2021
Figure 2. Collaboration network among authors

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Martins do Amaral, R., & Costa Alegre da Gama Afonso, H.
Figure 3. Thematic map
Figure 4. World collaboration map
Figure 5.
Co-citation network among references

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Scientic Knowledge and Regional Development: a bibliometric analysis of entrepreneurial productions
Conocimiento cientíco y desarrollo regional: un análisis bibliométrico de las producciones empresariales
Figure 6.
Distribution frequency of scientific productivity
Table 3. Productivity frequency according Lotka
Documents(X)
Quantity of
authors
(Y)
Proportion of
authors
(% Y)
Number of
articles
(X . Y)
Proportion of
articles
(% X . Y)
1
1225
89,81%
1225
76,85%
2
89
6,52%
178
11,17%
3
30
2,20%
90
5,65%
4
11
0,81%
44
2,76%
5
1
0,07%
5
0,31%
6
6
0,44%
36
2,26%
8
2
0,15%
16
1,00%
TOTAL
1364
100
1594
100
Source. Adapted from Moreira et al. (2013) and Aria and Cuccurullo (2021)
Table 4.
Crossing Lotka and H-index indicators
Author
Lotka (%)
Documents
H-Index
Total citations
Year
ZOU B
4,00
5
2
17
2019
CUNNINGHAM J
2,78
6
4
243
2015
URBANO D
2,78
6
5
428
2013
RASMUSSEN E
2,78
6
5
300
2014
FINI R
2,78
6
5
116
2016
WRIGHT M
2,78
6
6
491
2012
VISMARA S
2,78
6
6
181
2013
GUERRERO M
1,56
8
5
429
2013
MEOLI M
1,56
8
7
221
2013
Source
. Aria and Cuccurullo (2021)
Lotka distribution
Taking account Lotka analyses the authors’
productivity based on the number of documents
produced in descending order, it was possible to
establish a correlation between the results of Table
2 and the H-index. Like Lotka’s law, this indicator
measures productivity, however, based only on citations
accumulated by the documents over time (see Table 4).

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Martins do Amaral, R., & Costa Alegre da Gama Afonso, H.
Observing the data, it is evident that they are from
distinct scopes to analyse the entrepreneurial character
of the publications. The rst author Zou B has ve
published documents. Applying the inverse square law,
this researcher has better productivity per study than
others. However, this diers in the H-index. Taking
into account the productions of this author according
to the total number of citations, we can conclude that
his productivity does not seem to be signicant enough
for other researchers within the same theme.
However, when applying Lotka’s concept to the last
author – Meoli M, his productivity level is slightly
higher than the rst one. He has a higher number of
total citations and greater representativeness within
the scientic context according to the H-index. This
reality, by the way, is not conrmed from the second
bibliometric law standpoint, because the greater the
number of articles produced, the lower the author’s
productivity. Therefore, questions emerge about the
productivity concept in these two cases and how it
is measured in methodological terms, in addiction to
reecting on the data alignment in both cases from
Lotka’s perspective, as proposed Alvarado (2002).
Hence, it is crucial to understand the nature of these
indicators to measure the entrepreneurial degree
of knowledge in scientic productions, since the
perspectives of productivity and relevance are distinct
and not necessarily complementary. This is because,
from the previous table analysis (Table 3), authors who
have fewer publications may have higher frequencies
according to Lotka, but this feature is not absolute in
the crossing with the H-index.
Measuring entrepreneurial character from other
bibliometric tools
In this dierentiated scenario, it is crucial to investigate
how Lotka’s law can evaluate the productivity of
scientic productions, with entrepreneurial character
of knowledge as its main relevance indicator in addition
to existing quantitative data. Therefore, we propose to
analyze the entrepreneurial level of publications based
on documents, highlighting other bibliometric tools to
compose the analysis in hand.
For instance, the three-eld graph (Figure 1) brigs
two interesting aspects. The rst deals with the
amount of authors who referenced previous works,
considered extremely important for their research,
while the second point reects on the signicance
of current documents for new studies, expanding
knowledge of an entrepreneurial nature. Such aspects
are assertive as to the multidisciplinary broadening of
the entrepreneurship eld, being crucial for emerging
study proposals (Adelowo & Surujlal, 2020; Forliano
et al., 2021).
Thus, under the three-eld graphic view (Figure 1),
the most relevant productions reclassication (Table
1) upon the subsequent productions was proposed in
Table 5. Dierently from the rst scenario, certain
publications that had great representativeness in terms
of citations set themselves up in new positions owing to
new studies originated after their proposals.
In this updated table of the rst publication case, for
example, it somehow inuenced the formulation of 52
new researches, despite being in 3rd place in Table 1.
Meanwhile, the second position authors in this new
framework have fostered 50 subsequent documents,
even though they are in 1st place in the other perspe ctive.
Among the main productions list, we sought to verify
which subsequent publications were based on the
previous ones or that referenced these. From that,
Figure 7 of letters from ‘a’ to ‘f’ was developed to
clarify this reection, reinforcing the relevance of
using multiple methodological procedures to build a
structurally robust framework of knowledge.
Regarding the subsequent articles that referenced their
predecessors, those representing positions 3, 4 and 5
were instruments to think about new approaches in
posterior publications of this nature, identied by the
blue color. In other words, the articles highlighted duly
used the knowledge exposed in the previous documents
to elaborate new proposals or increment perspectives.
This shows that the connections density between
authors in gure 5 presents changing for a new phase
of studies, since these authors are mentioning dierent
researchers from their own co-authors eld and, at the
same time, being partially selective to the most relevant
authors group for the literature.
Table 6 shows how this classication proceeded.
These studies, according to the bibliometric data,
brought issues of innovative character, emphasizing
the knowledge inherent to regional development and
aligned to academic entrepreneurship.

ISSN 2219-7168
381
OCT - DIC 2023Comuni@ccion: Revista de Investigación en Comunicación y Desarrollo, 14(4), 373-387
Scientic Knowledge and Regional Development: a bibliometric analysis of entrepreneurial productions
Conocimiento cientíco y desarrollo regional: un análisis bibliométrico de las producciones empresariales
Table 5. Main production ranking according to the amount of subsequent documents
RANK MAIN PUBLICATIONS
SUBSEQUENT
DOCUMENTS
#
Author
Year
Title
Total citations
1 ABREU M;
GRINEVICH V 2013
The Nature of Academic Entrepreneurship in
the UK: Widening The Focus on
Entrepreneurial Activities
52
2
SIEGEL D; WRIGHT M
2015
Academic Entrepreneurship Time for a Rethink
50
3 RASMUSSEN E;
MOSEY S; WRIGHT M 2014
The Influence of University Departments on
the Evolution of Entrepreneurial Competences
in Spin-off Ventures
23
4
GUERRERO M;
CUNNINGHAM J;
URBANO D
2015
Economic Impact of Entrepreneurial
Universities Activities: An Exploratory Study
of the United Kingdom
16
5 GUERRERO M;
URBANO D 2013
Academics Startups Intentions and Knowledge
Filters: An Individual Perspective of The
Knowledge Spillover Theory of
Entrepreneurship
16
6
FINI R; RASMUSSEN
E; SIEGEL D;
WIKLUND J
2018
Rethinking the Commercialization of Public
Science From Entrepreneurial Outcomes to
Societal Impacts
12
7
GUERRERO M;
URBANO D; FAYOLLE
A; KLOFSTEN M;
MIAN S
2016 Entrepreneurial Universities Emerging Models
in the New Social and Economic Landscape 11
8 COLOMBO M; MEOLI
M; VISMARA S 2019
Signaling in Science-based IPOS: The
Combined Effect of Affiliation with Prestigious
Universities Underwriters and Venture
Capitalists
1
9
HEATON S; SIEGEL D;
TEECE D
2019
Universities and Innovation Ecosystems: A
Dynamic Capabilities Perspective
1
10 CUNNINGHAM J;
MENTER M 2020
Transformative Change in Higher Education:
Entrepreneurial Universities and High
technology Entrepreneurship
1
Source. Own elaboration
Such issues focused on the authors interaction and
its importance for the development are highlighted
within the research of Brekke (2020) and Wagner et al.
(2019), about the third mission as a tool for systemic
resolutions, stressing the relevance of the dissemination
and diversication of knowledge for the regional
development, expressed by other studies (Kochetkov et
al., 2017; Siemieniuk, 2016; Vekic et al., 2020).
In this sense, the issue raised by Markin et al. (2017),
regarding the scarce amount of research that measures
the entrepreneurial character of knowledge is valid.
Although there is a broad theoretical framework of
academic entrepreneurship and inherent to knowledge
transfer, its majority is limited to technical, conceptual
and technology-oriented aspects, which is also align
with the proposals of Skute (2019) and Vera-Goméz et
al. (2020) previously explained.
Siegel and Wright (2015) emphasize the need to
remodel the perspective of academic entrepreneurship,
since a large number of studies have given attention
exclusively to the points inherent to the third
mission of entrepreneurship universities, such as
commercialization and technology transfer. Among
the model proposed to explore the changes of this
third mission, the authors highlight the need for a
more conscious and balanced view of universities
when monitoring the systemic environment, along
with teaching and research. They also identied
that collaborative actions integrated with industry,
incubators and business accelerators inuence the
labour mobility of individuals, bringing positive
impacts for regional development.

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Martins do Amaral, R., & Costa Alegre da Gama Afonso, H.
Figure 7. Diagram 1 to 10 of subsequent documents quoted afterwards according Table 5, a). Diagram 1, b). Diagram 2,
c). Diagram 3, d). Diagram 4, e). Diagram 5, f). Diagram 6 to 10
a
ď
Đ
Ě
Ğ
Ĩ
Such proposition is in agreement with Sułkowski et
al. (2019), Vekic et al. (2020) and Forliano et al. (2021)
on the importance of adaptation for survival in the
systemic environment, as well as complements the idea
of Oliver et al. (2020) and Pugh et al. (2021) on the
signicance of learning and proactivity in this process.
Abreu and Grinevich (2013) aimed, through the
academic respondents’ analysis, to understand the
determinants of academic engagement on its range of
activities. They concluded that researched universities
signicantly contributed with teaching, research and
entrepreneurial activities, primarily in as much as the
spin-os creation and knowledge transfer is concerned.
Likewise, Guerrero et al. (2015) identied the importance
of academic entrepreneurship in intellectual property
and knowledge transfer actions, examining how this
entrepreneurship might be appropriately measured and
how multidimensional studies may assist in th is process.
Furthermore, Rasmussen et al. (2014), reiterate that it
is vital to understand the structuring and department
levels of spin-o universities to properly foster them
in the face of challenges of transitioning skills from
social capital to commercialisation of innovations.
On the same line, Heaton et al. (2019) explain that
universities have an essential role to the innovation
ecosystems, whose models linked to the triple helix
enable a maturation scenario for the interactions
between academia, industry and government in
benet of economic development. Thus, understanding
entrepreneurial management and its exibility in the
systemic context become fundamental to improve this
environment’s life cycle.

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Scientic Knowledge and Regional Development: a bibliometric analysis of entrepreneurial productions
Conocimiento cientíco y desarrollo regional: un análisis bibliométrico de las producciones empresariales
Such facts appear in the studies of Adelowo and
Surijlal (2020) and Vera-Goméz et al. (2021) on value
generation for development processes through general
knowledge, corroboration with new actions at social,
economic and governmental levels beyond universities
boundaries.
Guerrero and Urbano (2013) already wrote about
entrepreneu rship as a driving t oll for knowledge transfer,
highlighting the relevance of entrepreneurial intentions
role in the companies’ creation and the knowledge
ltering in its transfer process in the university sphere.
Considering the theories of knowledge expansion
and planned behaviour, the authors proposed a model
that explained the action of these intentions in the
dissemination of this knowledge, concluding that some
motivational aspects arising from collective constructs
inuence and, at the same time, are stimulants of the
development from the sense of identity and social
interaction.
Guerrero et al. (2016) complement that there is a growth
of countries those adopt public policies to promote
innovation through entrepreneurial institutions,
promoting regional development with initiatives
of technological nature. The authors point out
universities are like innovation and entrepreneurship
vectors, supporting the creation and strengthening
of an integrated ecosystem that provides impact at
educational, research and knowledge transfer levels.
Furthermore, they propose through methodological
frameworks issues resolution concerning the theme, in
addition to provoking new implications derived from
such direction.
Fini et al. (2018) claried aspects inherent to the third
mission considering the scientic commercialization
of knowledge, which provides broad social impacts
on development with instrumentality in innovation.
Colombo et al. (2019) also address innovative issues
in the interaction between prestigious actors linked
to universities, underwriters and capitalist companies
in the biotechnology sector, emphasizing how the
strengthening of interactions takes place in this context.
Finally, the research of Cunningham and Menter
(2020) pointed out the high technology eld, aiming
at understanding the inuence of higher education
policies on regional development, from a change in
the universities’ orientation to the entrepreneurial
perspective. They observed that industry integration
level and overarching scientic approach of universities
provide signicantly positive impacts for regional
entrepreneurship, inuencing decision making.
Table 6. Classification by constructs and attributes of the most relevant publications according to bibliometric data
CONSTRUCTS ATTRIBUTES
Siegel, D; Wright, M (2015)
Guerrero, M; Cunningham, J;
Urbano, D (2015)
Abreu, M; Grinevich, V (2013)
Guerrero, M; Urbano, D; Fayolle, A;
Klofsten, M; Mian, S (2016)
Rasmussen, E; Mosey, S; Wright, M
(2014)
Guerrero, M; Urbano, D (2013)
Fini, R; Rasmussen, E; Siegel, D;
Wiklund, J (2018)
Colombo, M; Meoli, M; Vismara, S
(2019)
Heaton, S; Siegel, D; Teece, D
(2019)
Cunningham, J; Menter, M (2020)
TOTAL
Academic
entrepreneurship
1
Technology transfer
x
x
x
x
x
5
2
Academic spin-offs
x
x
x
3
3
Knowledge
x
x
x
x
4
Entrepreneurship
1
Innovation
x
x
x
x
x
5
2
Regional development
x
x
x
x
x
x
6
3
Collaboration
x
x
x
3
Entrepreneurial
universities
1
Third mission
x
x
x
x
4
2
Triple Helix
x
x
x
x
4
University
1
Higher Education
x
x
2
2
Entrepreneurial
x
x
x
x
x
5
Social Capital
1
Social enterprises
0
2
Social entrepreneurship
0
Source: The authors

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Martins do Amaral, R., & Costa Alegre da Gama Afonso, H.
Conclusions
In this article, we propose to measure the
entrepreneurial nature of scientic knowledge using
the second bibliometric law, applied to the context of
regional development. Due to comparisons found, it
was concluded primarily that Lotka’s law is capable of
measuring value in terms of production quality rather
than quantity produced, since its approach highlight
the most relevance of well-structured and impactful
unitary production – with collaboration or not – applied
to dierent contexts than a collection of productions
with little conceptual variation and circumstantial
applicability.
However, the prior visible lack of intersection between
this indicators denoted that this indicator shoud
not be considered in isolation form to measure the
entrepreneurship level of scientic knowledge, since
when applied in this way, this test-measurement
instrument does not have suciently convincing
contribution to reliably synthesize a concept of multiple
complex variables, presented in qualitative analysis.
This is considered a major boundary to be overcome.
In an endeavor to transcend this limit, a qualitative
analysis of the most important productions was carried
out as a descriptive tool of the reability of the indicators.
In this regard, it was found that these publications
contributed to the eective and creative dissemination
of “entrepreneurial nature of knowledge”, concerning
emerging issues from a holistic and critical viewpoint
to the regional development context linked to academic
entrepreneurship. Furthermore, the majority of
these productions touched on in-depth reections on
knowledge as a tool for entrepreneurial dierentiation
for journals, universities and research, emphasizing
aspects pertinent to the social impacts and development
of a given region.
However, in spite of the eorts made to achieve the
research objective, some barries were identied. With
regard to the indicators intersection, a more rened
conceptualization of productivity is suggested for the
Lotka and H-index, aligned with “entrepreneurial
character of scientic knowledge” denition. This
could enable new methodological reections, providing
them with greater clarity within academia, despite
thei r complex ity.
Another limitation is the abstration of the proposed
concept of “entrepreneurial nature of scientic
knowledge”. Thus, even though the selected studies
have made interesting dialogical contributions, there
are still rare and scarce examples that bring or adapt
an approach distinct from the traditional perspective of
entrepreneurship (i.e. business eld) into the regional
development sphere. In addiction, there is a current
complexity in the treatment and perception of the
variables inherent in “entrepreneurial knowledge”,
since new sets of methodological tools are not being
tried out to ascertain the interference level of the
variables in the proposed concept and in its regional
applicability.
Given these barriers, it is imperative for new studies to
use more robust and eective appropriation methods
that provide solid results concerning projects of regional
impact whereas little clarication on the construction of
a consistent denition for ‘entrepreneurial knowledge’
– third reason. This could corroborate to the dialog
between studies and author collaborations in persistent
patterns of bibliometric co-occurences and networks.
Another viable proposal for new publications consists
of studying the causality relations with regard to the
interrelations between authors-content-publications
through multi-criteria models, contributing to the
estimating process an average level of entrepreneurial
knowledge in order to understand its behavior in a
globalized way in scientic productions.
Furthermore, another interesting implication could
be comparisons between the main existing indicators
in the literature and this new indicator proposal,
presenting the dierentiations among them and their
justications for the use and analysis. It is worth
mentioning that our understanding of a proposal for
new indicators is not intended to replace traditional
indexes, but suggesting a complementarity to the
analysis of scientic productions.
To overcome the limitations encountered, it is
important to include other databases such as Scielo,
Sciencedirect, Google Scholar, CAPES journals and
sciences.gov; not only to obtain more regionalized
studies of complementary bases, but also to broaden the
analysis of the entrepreneurship perception in scientic
production so as to structure a coherent proposal that
is consistent with the traditional semantics of the
terminology applied to scientic knowledge.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful for the support of Centro Federal de
Educação Tecnológica Celso Suckow da Fonseca –

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Scientic Knowledge and Regional Development: a bibliometric analysis of entrepreneurial productions
Conocimiento cientíco y desarrollo regional: un análisis bibliométrico de las producciones empresariales
CEFET/RJ. This study was nanced in part by the
Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível
Superior – Brasil (CAPES) – Finance Code 001.
Conict of interest
There is no conict of interest between the authors.
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