This paper focuses on technology transfer through academic entrepreneurship, exploringhow doctoral students’ motivations, social context, and institutional environment influ-ence their entrepreneurial decisions to launch a business, thereby contributing to research-driven innovation. Through semi-structured interviews with 28 doctoral students who havelaunched ventures, this study identifies two distinct entrepreneurial decision-making pat-terns among doctoral students: the ‘inner push’, driven by intrinsic motivation and per-sonal ownership of ideas, and the ‘social pull’, shaped by external influences such as su-pervisors and peer networks. By examining the interplay of personal and social influences,we advance the understanding of academic entrepreneurship and doctoral students’ rolein technology transfer. It demonstrates how different patterns encourage entrepreneurialbehavior, with an emphasis on the “inner push” from personal motivations. Our findingssuggest that universities need to develop support tools to nurture the early stage of doc-toral students’ entrepreneurial process, starting with the recognition of the importance oftheir motivations and the social context in which they operate. Creating an environmentconducive to technology transfer enables doctoral students to translate research into ven-tures, contributing to societal progress and economic growth.