Identifying emerging topics in university technology-based spin-offs: a resource-based structural topic model and a matrix analysis approach

University technology-based spin-offs (UTBSOs) are widely recognised as key drivers of economic growth through the commercialisation of proprietary technologies, yet prior topic analyses have shown limited theoretical interpretability, while resource-based view (RBV) research has relied mainly on quantitative analyses of individual factors. To address this, this study applies a structural topic model (STM) to international publications from 1980 to 2025, identifying 20 major topics and linking them to four RBV categories – capability, organisational, institutional and external – through an integrative matrix approach, with publications classified by whether they included authors from Asian or non-Asian countries. The Topic-Resource Portfolio Matrix (TRPM) analysis reveals four leading pairs – all capability resources – and four follow-up pairs spanning capability, organisational and external categories, with capability the dominant category. Managerial orientation and learning network capabilities emerge as key pairs in research involving Asian scholars, whereas academic technology and research management capabilities are prominent in research involving non-Asian scholars, and institutional topics remain prominent longer in the former. These findings underscore the need to expand capability-focused policies and to design tailored support strategies, while suggesting that such transitions should be interpreted in a region-sensitive manner, reflecting distinct research trajectories rather than differing levels of ecosystem maturity.