Power in the Commercialization Process: Adopting a Critical Sensemaking Approach to Academic Entrepreneurship

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how academic entrepreneurs make sense of the relationships between the various actors (business partners, stakeholders, academic entrepreneurs and themselves as team members) involved in the commercialization process. It uses the critical sensemaking (CSM) lens to focus on power and discourse in the sensemaking processes of three scientists who worked on the same commercialization team and ultimately decided not to go forward with the commercialization project. The analysis shows how individual sensemaking trajectories with various understandings of power unfold over time. The findings contribute to the discussion of academic entrepreneurship as a team-based process.