Abstract: Establishing academic spin-offs is one of the important means to transfer scientific and technological achievements from academic organizations to industries. In recent years, academic spin-offs arise sharply in China, but their performance is not as satisfactory as expected. Since executive incentive mechanism is a proven key factor for firms’ performance, this paper conducts an empirical study on the relationship between executive incentive modes and corporate comprehensive performance from the perspective of different actual controllers. Based on the samples of 94 academic spin-offs of listed companies in China, the study finds that executive incentive modes are not in common in spin-offs with different actual controllers. Moreover, data shows that pay incentive and promotion incentive have a positive effect on corporate comprehensive performance, while equity incentive does not.

Key words: academic spin-off, executive incentive, corporate comprehensive performance, actual controller