Responsible innovation among academic spin-offs: How responsible practices help developing absorptive capacity

Responsible innovation (RI) among technology-based start-ups has received little attention, while these firms are known to operate on the edges of what is socially desirable or ethically acceptable. In this paper we develop a conceptual model that captures the RI practices among 61 academic spin-offs and investigate how it affects the capacity of the firm to absorb external knowledge to better the exploitation of the innovation. The findings indicate that potential absorptive capacity is increased by both stakeholder engagement and social responsiveness, while realized absorptive capacity is moderately increased through social responsiveness. Remarkable is the finding that the extent that sustainability practices resonate in the start-ups operations does have a negative effect on the potential absorptive capacity. These results provide insight in the way in which start-ups adopt a RI philosophy to their innovation process and help to better understand how they learn and acquire external knowledge to increase the acceptance of their innovations. The findings provide clear recommendations for entrepreneurs and policymakers in the field of entrepreneurship and innovation.