IMPACTS OF CREATIVITY VS KNOWLEDGE INTERACTIONS ON ACADEMIC ENTREPRENEURS' START-UPS: A NOVEL APPROACH

This work is geared to analyze the relationship between Creativity vs Knowledge interactions in academic start-up projects, on the one hand, and the outcomes of research-based ventures, on the other hand. In particular, this paper focuses on the role played by such interactions during the design and implementation process of an advanced vehicle pooling platform in Southern Italy. The European Commission funding opportunities and the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research support the aforementioned platform. Therefore, it arises from an academic research project and is aimed at encouraging academic entrepreneurial activities in low-income regions conducted by young and highly-skilled researchers in the field of Smart Cities and Social Innovation. This research is realized by analyzing the overall project results by means of an interview-based activity, the feedback provided by a panel of experts, and the participation observation methodology. In particular, the evaluation process of such outcomes is composed of two steps. First, the outcomes originated from the research project are identified and listed. Afterwards, a qualitative assessment is realized by involving a panel of experts in order to determine the results coming from the research project. By a methodological point of view, this work is characterized by a case study approach and is realized by means of a qualitative research. The research design combines literature review activities and theoretical frameworks, which are mainly based on the adoption of the participation observation model of analysis proposed in [1] and further developed [2].