Research SummaryThis paper examines how academic entrepreneurs—scientists who found research‐based startups while remaining in academia—construct and sustain their professional identities amid frequent transitions between academic and entrepreneurial roles. Drawing on 27 interviews with Swedish academic entrepreneurs, we show that hybrid identities are not simply the result of reconciling abstract role categories but are shaped through the material and practical organization of everyday work. We introduce the concept of professional micro‐transitions as a key site of identity formation and argue that material artifacts and routines play a central role in this process. This study contributes to the literatures on identity work, role transitions, and academic entrepreneurship by offering a granular, materially grounded account of how hybrid identities are enacted and sustained in practice.Managerial SummaryThis article investigates how academic entrepreneurs—university scientists who create startups to commercialize research results while remaining in academia—manage to build a hybrid professional identity when frequently switching back and forth between their jobs as academics and for‐profit entrepreneurs. The findings reveal how they creatively find cross‐fertilizing effects between their academic and entrepreneurial work tasks. This in turn allows them to reevaluate and extend their professional identity. For universities, incubators, and policymakers, this study suggests that supporting academic entrepreneurship is not just about funding or IP policies. It also requires recognizing the practical identity work involved and creating flexible environments that allow scientists to integrate both roles in meaningful ways.

中文翻译：

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微转变和工作身份：学术企业家的案例

研究摘要本文研究了学术企业家（在学术界同时找到研究型初创公司的科学家）如何在学术和创业角色之间的频繁转换中构建和维持他们的专业身份。通过对瑞典学术企业家的 27 次采访，我们表明，混合身份不仅仅是调和抽象角色类别的结果，而是通过日常工作的物质和实际组织形成的。我们引入了专业微转变的概念，将其作为身份形成的关键场所，并认为物质人工制品和日常活动在此过程中起着核心作用。本研究通过提供关于混合身份如何在实践中制定和维持的精细、有材料基础的描述，为关于身份工作、角色转换和学术创业的文献做出了贡献。管理摘要本文调查了学术企业家（创建初创公司以将研究成果商业化，同时留在学术界的大学科学家）在学术界和营利性企业家的工作之间频繁来回切换时，如何设法建立混合职业身份。这些发现揭示了他们如何创造性地找到学术和创业工作任务之间的交叉融合效应。这反过来又使他们能够重新评估和扩展他们的专业身份。对于大学、孵化器和政策制定者来说，这项研究表明，支持学术创业不仅仅是资金或知识产权政策。它还需要认识到所涉及的实际身份工作，并创造灵活的环境，使科学家能够以有意义的方式整合这两种角色。