Bridging cognitive scripts in multidisciplinary academic spinoff teams: a process perspective on how academics learn to work with non-academic managers

This paper introduces a process model of how academics learn to bridge different cognitive scripts, thereby learning to collaborate with non-academic managers in the context of multidisciplinary academic spinoff (ASO) teams. Whereas prior research has taken a static perspective, showing that cooperation in ASO teams is challenging due to differences in cognitive scripts, we take a dynamic perspective, leveraging rich, longitudinal data on a single case to theorize how such cooperative challenges can be overcome. We reveal two aspects of this process. One is cognitive and intrapersonal, in which academics reconsider their own beliefs and understandings of their venture and the commercial world. The other is social and interpersonal, in which academics reconsider the way they collaborate with others.