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Technology Transfer Offices and Commercialization of University Intellectual Property: Performance and Policy Implications
Abstract
The recent increase in the rate of commercialization of intellectual property at US and European universities has important
performance and policy implications. We review recent studies of the antecedents and consequences of these activities and
then draw some lessons learned for policy-makers. A key conclusion is that universities and regions must formulate and implement
coherent and feasible technology transfer/commercialization strategies.
... Table 3 mentions the factors and their dimensions that, from resource-based theory, contribute to the performance of technology transfer in universities. It is highlighted that within resource-based theory, the key factors include tangible and intangible resources [12,21,61,74,[76][77][78] and capabilities (basic capabilities in R&D, organizational and dynamic capabilities) [62,64,[70][71][72]79,80]. Intellectual property [12,26,65,87,88] Normative-regulatory framework [15,81,83,89] Internal policies [56,90] Intellectual property rights [65,77,78,80] Basic capabilities in R&D R&D integration mechanisms [64,85,91] Internal capabilities of the university [ For Grant [75], capacity is the sufficiency or ability of a team of resources to perform a task or activity and constitutes the primary source of competitive advantage, just as resources are the sources of a company's capabilities. The theory of resources and capabilities is fundamentally valid and continues to evolve to the extent that we speak of dynamic capabilities [62,70], which implies adapting to change in order to integrate, construct, and reconfigure internal and external resources. ...
... State incentives to facilitate knowledge flow [58,118] Role of society in the university-industry relationship [64,77] Conditions of enterprises regarding development of R&D + i stemming from academia [26,41,77,78,87] Conditions of the state concerning development of R&D + i stemming from academia [57,77,119] Vocation of academic players to find solutions to concrete productive/social problems [23] Non-traditional incentives for performance for university personnel and R&D centers [25,56] Leadership [56,97] Conditions of society regarding development of R&D + i stemming from academia [77,78,87,88,120] Sustainability 2023, 15, 6550 9 of 21 ...
... Concerning resources and capabilities, it is pointed out how authors have managed to identify the interest the players have shown not only in identifying, evaluating, and quantifying resources [7,21,61,[74][75][76][77][78]81,82,84,85,154] and capabilities [21,34,62,[69][70][71][72]79,153] related to the organization's knowledge, but also in how these factors can speed up internal R&D processes and encourage other players to see them as strategic allies in transfer processes, leading to collaborative research, development, and innovation processes. In the same way, the interest that the subject of intellectual property has aroused is highlighted [12,26,65,87,88]. This is fostered by the concern expressed by different institutions and/or players involved in the transfer process, its regulation and compliance that guarantee and promote the best environment to ensure that technologies generated from research processes are finally commercialized. ...
This study aims to review and synthesize the rapidly evolving literature on technology transfer from universities, and the concepts and models included in it, from a knowledge-flow approach to find the factors contributing to its performance. This article provides a perspective on recent work, focusing on empirical studies on technology transfer in universities conducted in the last 32 years from a knowledge-based vision. The study was carried out from a systematic literature review in the Scopus, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, and SpringerLink databases on 135 articles selected and evaluated by peers from critical surveillance factors such as technology transfer, knowledge flow, and university–industry relationship, among others. It was possible to identify 75 factors that, from a knowledge-based vision and specifically from a knowledge-flow approach, permit and contribute to the performance of technology transfer generated from research processes in universities. We classified studies into four categories according to their approaches, each with their dimensions and factors: management of knowledge, resources and capabilities, management of technological transfer, and the university–industry relationship. This classification permitted not only identification but also the systematization of the different factors and related authors that, from a knowledge-flow approach, contribute to the performance of technological transfers in universities, reflecting their efficiency and effectiveness. In this respect, absorption capacity and open innovation are topics which are worthy of exploration.
... Therefore, the entrepreneurial university model (Etzkowitz, 1983;Clark, 1998) focuses on commercialisation activities (Perkmann et al., 2013), with new university structures connecting academic scientists with potential research users via a reassuring facilitator environment (Siegel et al., 2007) recognising the significance and strategically fostering the various routes by which knowledge supports innovation (Uyarra, 2010). The entrepreneurial model emphasises universities commercialising their knowledge through spin-offs, patents, and licensing (Guerrero and Urbano, 2012;Trippl et al., 2015). ...
... According to Audretsch and Keilbach (2004), entrepreneurship is another component of the production function. It contributes to the output and growth of businesses through knowledge transfer, thereby attracting or generating new enterprises that promote competition and diversity (Wright et al., 2007). Consequently, these impacts could produce positive economic growth, infrastructural development, increased productivity, competitive advantages, regional capacities, regional networks, regional identity, and regional innovation (Feola et al., 2021). ...
... Therefore, entrepreneurial universities add value to the economy through the generation, attraction, and retention of talented human capital and entrepreneurs(Bramwell and Wolfe, 2008).The traditional methods of universities in commercialising knowledge like copyrights, patents, licences, and trademarks are becoming obsolete. According toWright et al. (2007), the nature of universities is changing as reduced public funding is increasing the emphasis on the commercialisation of university research, thus bringing the development of commercialisation beyond the traditional focus on the licensing of innovations(Thursby and Thursby, 2002). ...
... TTO is committed and facilitates the process of transfer (Villani et al., 2017) and commercialization of academic knowledge , and as an intermediary supplier or promoters of innovation and technology for those who have the potential to commercialize it (Beltran et al., 2020;Mohammed et al., 2018;Donald S Siegel et al., 2007). Abbas et al. (2018) and Hidalgo & Albors (2011) have conducted in-depth studies related to the role and the underlying factors of TTO in the transfer of knowledge from research universities to industry, meanwhile Berbegal-Mirabent et al. (2012) making the conceptual framework of TTO as knowledge brokers. ...
... Regression (Fadeyi et al., 2019;Geoghegan et al., 2015;Pitsakis & Giachetti, 2019;Sellenthin, 2009;D S Siegel et al., 2003;Xu et al., 2011) MCDM (Chapple et al., 2005;Curi et al., 2015;Fadeyi et al., 2019;G Secundo et al., 2019;Donald S Siegel et al., 2007;Silva et al., 2018;Stankevičienė et al., 2017) Literature review (Fitzgerald & Cunningham, 2016;Holgersson & Aaboen, 2019;Lissoni, 2012;Sierra et al., 2017;Ustundag et al., 2011) Multivariate analysis (Feng et al., 2012;Fitzgerald & Cunningham, 2016;Hidalgo & Albors, 2011;Olaya-Escobar et al., 2020;Rahim et al., 2019;Sengupta & Ray, 2017;Stankevičienė et al., 2017) Descriptive statistics (Hülsbeck et al., 2013;Xu et al., 2011) Design Experiment (Shane et al., 2015) Focus Group Discussion (Rampersad et al., 2012;Troshani et al., 2011) Empirical analysis (Berbegal-Mirabent et al., 2012;Paolo Gubitta et al., 2016;Hülsbeck et al., 2013) ...
... Abbas et al., 2018;Beltran et al., 2020;Berbegal-Mirabent et al., 2012;Bolzani et al., 2020;A Huyghe et al., 2014;Link, 2000;(Macho-Stadler et al., 2007);Martín-Rubio & Andina, 2016;Mohammed et al., 2018;Villani et al., 2017;Bigliardi et al., 2015;Chapple et al., 2005;Chugh, 2013;De Beer et al., 2017;Holgersson & Aaboen, 2019;Lafuente & Berbegal-Mirabent, 2019;Olaya- Escobar et al., 2020;Rahim et al., 2019;G Secundo et al., 2019;Giustina Secundo et al., 2017;Stephan, 2001; Ustundag et al., WeckowskaCartaxo & Godinho, 2017;Chapple et al., 2005;De Beer et al., 2017;Lafuente & Berbegal-Mirabent, 2019;Olaya-Escobar et al., 2020;G Secundo et al., 2019;Battaglia et al., 2017;Chakroun, 2017;Curi et al., 2015;Haney & Cohn, 2004;Link & Siegel, 2005;Marques et al., 2019;D S Siegel et al., 2003;Silva et al., 2018;Stuart J. Smyth et al., 2016;Soares et al., 2020;Stankevičienė et al., 2017;Tornatzky, 2001; Troshani et al., Tseng Alexander & Martin, 2013;Battaglia et al., 2017;Brescia et al., 2016;Chakroun, 2017;Hülsbeck et al., 2013;Link & Siegel, 2005;Sengupta & Ray, 2017;Troshani et al., 2011; Zheng et al.Anderson, 2007;Blankesteijn et al., 2020;Fadeyi et al., 2019;Lissoni, 2012;Mowery & Sampat, 2004;Sellenthin, 2009;Senoo et al., 2009;Shane et al., 2015) Model ofTTO (Andrade et al., 2017; Andreev et al., 2016; Baglieri et al., 2018;Feng et al., 2012;Olcay & Bulu, 2016;Poyago-Theotoky, 2009; Sierra et al.Bengtsson, 2017;Geoghegan et al., 2015;Hoye & Pries, 2009;Pitsakis & Giachetti, 2019;Donald S Siegel et al., 2007; Viana et al.Alavi & Habek, 2016;Cesaroni & Piccaluga, 2016;Hidalgo & Albors, 2011;Pinto & Fernández-Esquinas, 2018;Sharifi et al., 2014;D S Siegel et al., 2001) 6 ...
This study aims to review literature in Technology Transfer Office (TTO) which identifies and analyzes the research trends, methods, and topics, and directions for future research. The methodology used in this paper is a systematic literature review, which collects data from the Scopus and Web of Science databases and based on the specified research questions, 86 papers selected objectively were published from 2000 to May 2020. This study finds a sharp growth of publications on the topic after 2000 until now. Journal of Technology Transfer is the journal that has the most articles with a total of seventeen articles, and the most active authors with a minimum of three articles in the TTO field of four authors. The topics in the TTO field are grouped into seven groups, role of TTO, assessment, measurement, and performance of TTO, organizational structure of TTO, collaboration forms, model of TTO, commercialization, and knowledge transfer. Moreover, the research methods used are quantitative method, qualitative method and mixed-method, and data collection methods are interviews, analyzing previous data/databases, questionnaires, surveys, and case studies. Research tools used are regression, multi-criteria and decision making (MCDM), literature review, multivariate analysis, descriptive statistics, design experiment, focus group discussion, and empirical analysis. The findings and future research directions of the study offers a new avenue for further exploration and contribution to this discipline.
... Thus, its function is to (a) evaluate and disseminate new findings; (b) seek legal protection for the technology, primarily through patents; (c) negotiate licensing agreements for the industry; and (d) collect royalties, supervise, and enforce contractual agreements with licensees (Markman, Phan, et al., 2005a, b). Siegel et al. (2007) state that if a faculty member submits an invention disclosure, the TTO decides whether the invention should be patented by usually consulting with a faculty committee of experts. In making this decision, the TTO typically attempts to assess the invention's commercial potential. ...
... This network has 4 clusters (blue, red, green, and yellow); the blue and red clusters are the references with the most citations. The blue cluster has as main cited references, and Siegel et al. (2007), which address the performance and efficiency of TTOs. The green cluster has as main cited references, Markman et al. (2009), Rothaermel et al. (2007, and Macho-Stadler et al. (2007), dealing with topics such as university entrepreneurship and university-company collaboration. ...
... It is noteworthy that and Siegel et al. (2007) are the most cited references in the articles and have more co-citation links with other articles, among others. It is observed that these references analyze productivity indicators and the relationship between performance and TT policies, subjects addressed in most of the analyzed articles, which justifies a large number of citations. ...
This study presents a systematic literature review on technology transfer offices (TTOs). It attempts to identify and characterize the existing literature that uses TTO as an object of study and presents a plan for future research in this context. We considered the Scopus and Web of Science databases to analyze the papers published between 1988 and 2020. The search resulted in the selection and analysis of 186 articles. A systematic analysis was conducted with the help of Excel and the VOSviewer software, followed by a content analysis. The results revealed that, despite the growing interest in research on TTOs, a greater concentration of studies have analyzed TTO strategy and technology transfer performance. Other topics such as human resources, financial resources, and networks have been less studied. This paper establishes the grounds for grasping the gaps existing in the literature and proposes a future research agenda. Thus, this research contributes to the theoretical knowledge of themes related to TTOs because it analyzed the actual literature, identified gaps in the literature, provides researchers with new insights into the TTOs, and presented research opportunities about the main problems of TTOs that can be solved from the research development focused on resolution.
... In the last two decades, a growing number of publications have investigated the efficiency of university research. The majority of research is focused on technology and knowledge transfer efficiency or commercialization efficiency [13][14][15][16][17]. The literature review has shown that there are several approaches to assessing the effectiveness of research activities of universities. ...
... The existing approaches to evaluating the effectiveness of research activities are divided into two types, depending on the level of influence of research results. Within the framework of this classification, an assessment is distinguished at the micro level (at the level of the university) [22], [17], [21], the technology transfer office level [13], [14], [23] and at the macro level (at the scale of the national and regional economy [1], [24][25][26][27]. ...
... Methodological approaches to evaluating the efficiency of research activities Data envelopment analysis and stochastic frontier estimation Some efficiency studies are based on a production function framework, where a frontier of efficient combinations of inputs and outputs is constructed empirically and an organizational unit's technical inefficiency (inability to produce the maximum amount of output given one's inputs, or inability to minimize the use of inputs given one's output) is measured in terms of distance from the frontier. Such a frontier can be estimated parametrically using stochastic frontier estimation [13,14] or non-parametrically using data envelopment analysis (DEA) [16], [22], [28]. DEA measures the efficiencies for all organizational units simultaneously, a small change in a specific variable might change the efficiency results for all organizational units. ...
Evaluating the effectiveness of research activities is one of the topical issues in the higher education system. Despite this, studies on the extensive assessment of research units' outputs at the university are rare. The main goals of this study are (1) the development of a comprehensive methodology for assessing the research performance of the units; (2) testing this methodology to compare the performance indicators of 37 research institutes and centers. Both quantitative and qualitative research methods were applied in this study. Research results can be beneficiary for government bodies, allowing them to make decisions about the allocation or reallocation of funding and top management in higher education for benchmarking and internal performance evaluation of research institutes and centers. This article contributes to the theoretical basis of research performance evaluation at HEIs and puts forward a step-by-step methodology.
... In the 2010s, already the relevant academic literature began to study the development of entrepreneurial capabilities in universities whose main interest consisted in the acceleration of the processes of commercialization of research results (Siegel et al., 2007;Wright et al., 2007;Guerrero & Link, 2022). To this end, Rasmussen et al. (2011) conducted a longitudinal study with spin-off companies to determine what are those capabilities in universities that facilitate entrepreneurship. ...
... Every new entrepreneurial initiative is based on exploiting a business opportunity (Rasmussen et al., 2011). In the case of university spin-offs/start-ups conceived in the university context, such a business opportunity is based on the development of a product or service based on the knowledge that has the capacity to become a (non)profit venture depending on the information that the university has captured from its environment or its stakeholders (Fini et al., 2018;Siegel et al., 2007;Siegel & Wright, 2015;Guerrero & Urbano, 2014;Urbano et al., 2017). However, not all universities have appropriated capabilities for capturing information, processing and seizing opportunities, building a culture of entrepreneurship, and transforming ideas into products or services. ...
The academic literature on entrepreneurship has focused on studying universities due to their crucial role in regions’ economic development. This is due to the organizational capabilities that allow them to be not only manufacturers of ideas but also promoters of entrepreneurial thinking that facilitates the creation of new ventures. However, despite the plethora of studies that address the relationship between universities and entrepreneurship, the literature still needs to be more comprehensive when explaining how contextual factors and stakeholders influence university capabilities that allow them to generate and manage entrepreneurial initiatives. Therefore, in this chapter, we address this knowledge gap by systematically reviewing 152 papers published between 2000 and 2022 and argue that entrepreneurial capabilities like building, capturing, connecting, and integrating are a consequence of the influence of the university’s stakeholders and context. To support our argument, we use deductive, inductive, and abductive reasoning to establish cause-and-effect relationships between the works of literature on entrepreneurship, universities, and entrepreneurial capabilities.
... Despite a vibrant discussion about the importance of intermediation in regional transitions [24][25][26][27], the peculiarities of academia-focused knowledge intermediation have seldom been addressed in this context [22]. Instead, studies of knowledge intermediation mainly focus on the commercialization of academic knowledge via entrepreneurship and technology transfer [15,28,29] and, more recently, the formation of entrepreneurial and technology transfer ecosystems surrounding HEIs' local environments [30,31]. Meanwhile, the concept of intermediation in transitions processes has been assessed in regard to in the activities of government-affiliated organizations that address failures in innovation systems [32], [33] in order to foster sustainability [34,35]. ...
... [30,41]). The activities they perform in order to enhance the connectivity between academic and non-academic actors can be ascribed to two main objectives: fostering the commercialization of academic knowledge assets via licensing and patenting [28,42], while strengthening formal university-industry linkages [29,43,44] and promoting academic entrepreneurship [45][46][47][48][49], and furthering the formation of nascent transfer ecosystems surrounding HEIs' local environments [50], [31,51,52]. Contemplating these two main objectives, research on the effects of knowledge intermediating activities on socio-technical transition processes remains scarce [22]. ...
... This involves university technology transfer (UTT) that aims to increase the impact of academic research [1][2][3][4][5]. More specifically, UTT refers to transferring, converting, and commercializing university-based knowledge that has been developed at the universities to benefit universities, industry, and society [3,6]. To gain higher UTT performance, universities must manage the wide variety and heterogeneity of tangible and intangible assets, including internal and external financial, commercial and human capital resources [4,7,8]. ...
... These organizational capabilities include, but are not limited to, continuously sensing the changes in the surrounding context, allocating both internal and external resources, orchestrating innovative assets, and improving evolutionary fitness and sustainability. Previous studies have outlined a critical role of dynamic capabilities for universities in aligning strategic assets in the UIC ecosystem to capture and maintain value in both entrepreneurship-and science-oriented UTT contexts [5,6,11,32]. Recent literature has begun to examine the dynamic capabilities in university UTT; however, little attention has been paid to the micro-foundations, more specifically: to the exact origins of the dynamic capabilities "sensing", "seizing" and "reconfiguring" that lie in the management routines of organizations [9,11,26]. ...
Within the university-industry ecosystem, improvement and innovation of technology transfer involve implementing appropriate dynamic capabilities. To answer the question-What are the micro-foundations of dynamic capabilities in university technology transfer?-this study investigates in-depth organizational-level dynamic capabilities in transferring university-based knowledge to business and society. Two qualitative case studies were deployed at organizational entities at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam: the Industry Alliance Office, and the Demonstrator Lab. These two organizations stimulate science- and business-oriented university technology transfer. In this context, the micro-foundations of the dynamic capabilities "sensing", "seizing" and "reconfiguring" are identified and discussed. For "sensing", which is the university's ability to explore the opportunities in the ecosystem, the micro-foundations are "selecting internal competency" and "sensing external partners". For "seizing", which supports universities in managing complementarity with industry and society, micro-foundations include "resource co-allocation" and "collaborative business model". The micro-foundations of "reconfiguring", through which universities maintain evolutionary fitness in the innovation ecosystem, are "strategic renewal", "establishing a university technology transfer-friendly environment", and "asset orchestration". This study provides researchers with a better understanding of how dynamic capabilities facilitate university technology transfer. Industrial practitioners and policymakers can consider the suggestions of the present study when pursuing collaboration with universities.
... Existing literature indicates that key decisionmakers within universitiesacademics, senior management and KE managershave to be strategic in their KE activities based on their goals and preferences (Buckland, 2009;Horner et al., 2019;Sengupta and Ray, 2017b) and their access to relevant resources (Siegel et al., 2003(Siegel et al., , 2007Hewitt--Dundas, 2012;Ulrichsen, 2014;Rossi, 2018). Given the changes in the external environment, this strategic approach is relevant for most universities, from large research-intensive "top" universities to "mid-range" ones which, although research active, cannot match the quality and breadth of research and resources that the top institutions command, and consequently face a myriad of constraints in their KE activities (Wright et al., 2008). ...
... In fact, engagement with each KE channel and type of stakeholder type needs unique competencies and support structures (Bercovitz et al., 2001;Sengupta and Ray, 2017b;Siegel et al., 2007;Soares and Torkomian, 2021). For instance, patent licensing and spinning out companies may require entrepreneurial skills, including technology translation (such as adapting a prototype for exact needs of the client), new venture management, and dealing with potential investors such as angels and venture capitalists (Rasmussen and Jarl, 2010;Soares and Torkomian, 2021). ...
This paper examines how universities' knowledge exchange (KE) profiles evolve in relation to changes in the composition of their funding sources. Using the dynamic capabilities framework as a conceptual lens, we examine how changes in the share of KE versus research income in a university's financial portfolio are related to the mix of KE channels it uses and of types of stakeholders it engages with, that is, its KE profile. Relying on an 8-year panel of 110 UK-based universities we show that, universities whose share of KE income is higher relative to others, are associated with a higher degree specialization in both KE channels and stakeholder types. Conversely, universities whose share of blue-sky research income is higher relative to others, are associated with greater diversification in both. Some of these linkages are negatively moderated by higher levels of tangible and intangible resources: universities with greater intangible resources are less responsive to variations in research and KE income shares on KE channel diversity; while universities with higher tangible resources are less responsive to variations in research income share on KE stakeholder diversity.
... However, for most technology-based enterprises that lack resources and capabilities, although knowledge gaining and innovation are important, the ability to receive external help is even more precious (Chen et al., 2014). The guidance, support and incentives from government policies are often regarded as important driving forces which can promote the development and growth of those enterprises in their own fields (Li, 2012;Siegel et al., 2007). Only by constantly perceiving the intention of government policies, understanding the connotation of policies, and actively participating in the application of policies, enterprises can benefit from policies and generate a willingness to promote their participation in technology transfer, thereby realizing policy expectations. ...
... In reality, many technology transfer enterprises are limited by their own resources and capabilities and are unable to achieve technological transformation through technology transfer in the short term. However, based on the trend of sustainable development, the enterprises themselves are concerned about long-term development and eager to get the help of external forces, especially the support from the government (Siegel et al., 2007). Therefore, exploring the impact of corporate policy perception ability on technology transfer performance will promote policy-making pertinence and effectiveness. ...
Technology transfer is an essential source of technological innovation for enterprises, which is conducive to the market transformation of patent achievements and the commercial application of new technologies. Building upon social capital theory, all data analyses were performed using SPSS 22.0 and Amos software with the multiple linear regression method. The study explores the mechanism of policy perception to obtain the technical resources needed for enterprise development through boundary-spanning behavior, with a moderating effect of inter-organizational trust and technological potential gap. The study uses survey data from 125 enterprise teams of 42 technology-based enterprises in China. The results show that policy perceived usefulness and usability significantly promote technology transfer performance and boundary-spanning behavior plays a mediating role between them. Speaking of the influencing factors of technology transfer, technological potential gap significantly moderates the relationship between boundary-spanning and technology transfer performance. In contrast, inter-organizational trust positively moderates the relationship between boundary-spanning and technology transfer performance. The research provides theoretical reference and guidance for enterprises on using policy perception better to improve technology transfer performance in the institutional environment. It also helps inspire enterprises to better deal with the cooperative relationship between relevant stakeholders and achieve win-win cooperation.
... Similarly, studies in Sweden show that the successful development of USOs is linked to the continuing generations of networks developed by the USOs (Berggren and Lindholm Dahlstrand 2009), thus ensuring a continuous stream of knowledge-based entrepreneurship contributing to the local/regional economic development. These examples clearly indicate that evolutionary aspects play a central role in academic entrepreneurship considerations (Lawton Smith, Romeo, and Bagchi-Sen 2008), as networks are built over time (Siegel, Veugelers, and Wright 2007). Benneworth and Charles (2005) go even further, describing the university as a central regional innovation agent, which could utilise USOs to diffuse knowledge in underperforming regions, transforming its innovative capability. ...
... This is especially paradoxical when taking into account the studies that focus on a USO's IPO (Bonardo, Paleari, and Vismara 2011), or those that point out that a USOs' significant contribution to economic development starts after firms become publicly listed, as this is when they actually start to grow (Lawton Smith, Romeo, and Bagchi-Sen 2008). It is worth stressing, nevertheless, that many USOs do not even sell their products/services even after reaching the IPO stage, suggesting considerable heterogeneity (Siegel, Veugelers, and Wright 2007), and an increased difficulty in capturing their development in a single stage-based model. ...
This paper contributes to the understanding of university spinoff (USO) development by analysing structural properties of their shareholder networks over time and across different regions. Theoretically, we propose a new stage-based typology of USO development across regions. Empirically, the study utilises a sample of 1033 academic spinoffs founded by 87 universities across 12 unitary regions in the UK considering the diversity of spatial contexts in the USO development. We undertake a social network analysis of relations USOs form with their parent universities and shareholders by adopting ‘betweenness centrality’ and ‘structural holes’ as two key measures. By employing this novel network-based view of firm development across regions, this study builds on the development model of USOs by identifying three key phases of USO development: (1) organisation phase, (2) exploitation phase, and (3) maturity and reorganisation phase. Second, we observe differences in USOs in terms of shareholder network development across diverse regional contexts. We propose a novel typology of entrepreneurial regions to better understand the diverse spatiality of USOs: peripheral lock-in, entrepreneurial periphery, rigid core, and entrepreneurial core. We call for further research to capture the long-term development and variable growth paths of USOs.
... The activities of OTLs have important economic and policy implications since licensing agreements and universitybased startups can result in additional revenue for the university, employment opportunities, and local economic and technological spillovers through the stimulation of additional research and development (R&D) investment and job creation. [13][14][15] To incentivize university scientists, universities typically share licensing income with the inventors and the inventor's department. 16 For example, Stanford's royalty-sharing policy is to divide a third of the net income to the inventor, a third to the inventors' departments, and a third to the inventors' schools. ...
... 39,40 In sum, this line of research suggested that the key impediments to better university technology transfer performance tend to be organizational, 41 which includes incentives, relating both to pecuniary and non-pecuniary rewards, such as credit toward tenure and promotion, the staffing and compensation practices of the OTLs, university culture, milieu of entrepreneurism, and group norms. 13,42,43 More broadly, previous research has investigated factors that drive scientific innovation. Although scientific innovation is widely accepted to be highly uncertain and unpredictable, previous research found that scientific projects that posit unexpected relationships between domains receive greater attention and are more richly rewarded than projects that explore more commonplace connections. ...
This article systematically investigates the technology licensing by Stanford University. We analyzed all the inventions marketed by Stanford’s Office of Technology Licensing (OTL) between 1970 to 2020, with 4,512 inventions from 6,557 inventors. We quantified how the innovation landscape at Stanford changed over time and examined factors that correlate with commercial success. We found that the most profitable inventions are predominantly licensed by inventors’ own startups, inventions have involved larger teams over time, and the proportion of female inventors has tripled over the past 25 years. We also identified linguistic features in how the inventors and OTL describe the inventions that significantly correlate with the invention’s future revenue. Interestingly, inventions with more adjectives in their abstracts have worse net income. Our study opens up a new perspective for analyzing the translation of research into practice and commercialization using large-scale computational and linguistics analysis.
... Technology commercialization begins with basic research activities and technology development to technology transfer, then the next stage is the commercialization process towards product launch, the last stage is the commercialization process until it succeeds in becoming a business ( Figure 1). So that efforts to increase the commercialization of higher education research results have been carried out in almost all universities in the world by establishing a technology transfer office (TTO) to manage the commercialization of new technology (Siegel et al, 2007, Dalmarco et al, 2011, Vinig and Lips, 2015, Rogers et al, 2000, Phan and Siegel 2006, Harlow, 2017, DeVol et al. 2017. A technology transfer office (TTO) is a type of organization that assists research organizations in managing their intellectual assets in a way that facilitates their transformation into benefits for society (Carlsson, 2002). ...
... Para llevar una invención generada en una universidad a comercializarse en un mercado se deben sortear un cierto número de obstáculos, de acuerdo con Siegel et al., (2007). Primero, la invención debe llevarse a un estado de desarrollo en el que pueda ser validado en un entorno real, lo cual implica más recursos y la inversión de tiempo por parte del investigador principal. ...
La transferencia de tecnología generada en las universidades hacia el mercado a través de los mecanismos formales como el licenciamiento o la creación de spin-off generalmente encuentra varias dificultades. Este proceso de transferencia comprende diferentes agentes con intereses diversos e incluso contrarios y abarca varias etapas que deben ser sorteadas para lograr realizarla con éxito. Por esta razón muchas universidades tienen muy pocos casos de éxito para mostrar,
incluso cuando tienen una vocación hacia la investigación aplicada y realizan muchos proyectos en compañía de la industria, como en el caso que se presenta en este trabajo. Frente a esta problemática se buscó con este trabajo aportar hacia el entendimiento del proceso de transferencia, específicamente identificando los principales factores que inciden en el logro de una transferencia de tecnología satisfactoria. Para esto se realizó una revisión de la literatura sobre factores que
inciden en el éxito en la transferencia de tecnologías generadas en la universidad, a partir de la cual se construyó una lista exhaustiva de factores, los cuales fueron agrupados de acuerdo a sus similitudes, lo que dio como resultado una lista de 40 factores que se clasificaron en 6 categorías: tecnología, inventor, mercado y financieros, desarrollo socioeconómico, propiedad intelectual e institución. Esta lista de factores abarca el proceso de transferencia a través de sus diferentes etapas y distintos agentes, y es propuesta como un insumo para la evaluación ex ante en los procesos de transferencia llevados a cabo entre universidades y entidades receptoras, interesadas en transferir y adoptar tecnología.
... Academic and applied research capabilities (Lee & Jung, 2021 • Improving cognitive and organizational dimensions (Villani et al., 2016) • Serving as an 'intermediary' between university scientist and firms, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists (Siegel et al., 2007) • Suitable business models that become catalyst and orchestrator (Baglieri et al., 2018) • A properly organized and staffed TTO (Bradley et al., 2013) • Organizational form and strategies for establishing intellectual property rights and in securing revenues from these rights (Bercovitz et al., 2001) • Marketing activities to tackling weak links between academia and industry (Colyvas et al., 2002) • Capability and experience of TTOs (Jung & Kim, 2018) • Experienced technology licensing officers in industry network (Shane et al., 2015) • Employees with research-oriented capabilities (Soares & Torkomian, 2021) • Putting external resource providers in contact with scientists who committed to commercialization (O'Gorman et al., 2008) • Business development capabilities (Lockett & Wright, 2005) • Experienced and expert staff teams and universities with clearly established rules for creating academic startups and having higher patenting records (González-Pernía et al., 2013) • Role in supporting IP, research and spin-off (Brescia et al., 2016) Role of University's Incubator ...
p>Technology commercialization in universities which consists of three phases, namely basic research, commercialization feasibility, and commercialization runs non-linearly and goes through licensing and spin-off creation. To achieve commercialization success, there are eight influencing factors, namely academic entrepreneur, role of technology, availability of market, availability of finance, intermediaries' support (i.e. University Technology Transfer Office (UTTO), university's incubator, and proof of concept center), role of collaborative research center, policy support, and regional infrastructure and environment. Meanwhile, the existing management theories that discuss the commercialization of technology in universities mostly use a resource perspective such as Resource-Based View (RBV), resource orchestration theory, and dynamic capabilities with university and spin-offs as unit of analysis. This literature study provides several recommendations for future studies. First, it needs to expand the analysis not limited to licensing and spin-off, and second, it is suggested to develop a resource perspective by enriching what dimensions influence the success of a technology commercialization in universities or provide alternative new management theories in understanding technology commercialization in university.</p
... Outbound open innovation involves and stimulates the combination and internal and external knowledge flow to boost R&D projects, motivating higher education institutions (HEIs) to keep close relations with external agents, both in the knowledge generation process and in its development and commercialization (Aylen, 2010;Chesbrough & Vanhaverbeke, 2006;De Jong et al., 2008;Mbieke, 2020;Teece, 2007). It includes practices like intellectual property and licensing (Asakawa et al., 2010;Bigliardi & Galati, 2013;Chesbrough & Euchner, 2011;Ghazawneh, 2010;Huggins et al., 2020;Igartua et al., 2010;Lichtenthaler, 2011;Spaeth et al., 2010;Van de Vrande et al., 2009), used commonly in technology transfer from universities (Bozeman, 2000;Dalmarco et al., 2011;García A., 2008;Siegel et al., 2007). ...
... Few ground-breaking scientific and research ideas are motivated to be commercialised to generate revenue. (Gokhale, 2016) i.e chemistry graduate Frank Jaksch built his successful company Chroma Dex around the chemistry of natural goods (Siegel et al., 2007). Few institutions train students to select entrepreneurship or discover potential employers for this career path, while the majority of universities focus on increasing students' employability because finding a job after graduation is becoming a big worry Phan and Siegel, 2006;Jaksch, 2016;Chemistry at Illinois, 2022;Donthu and Gustafsson, 2020). ...
... It is through the TTOs that universities have the opportunity to 'commercialize' its knowledge/research, often aiming at helping solve problems in the productive sector (Dalmarco et al., 2011). This commercialization is facilitated by the TTOs, since it is up to them to support the cooperators (Dornbusch & Neuhausler, 2015), in addition to opening access to extra resources for the university, as well as new research possibilities (Siegel et al., 2007). ...
Objective of the study: In order to understand how universities in south Brazil have been developing their entrepreneurship mission this study aimed to analyze the role of their Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) by the lens of the dynamic capability theory, considering sensing, seizing and transforming practices. Methodology/approach: qualitative approach, and a multiple case study strategy, 31 semi-structured interviews were carried out with different actors linked to university TTOs as well as documentary research. Main results: The results reveal that sensing, seizing, and transforming practices have been adopted by the university TTOs and are supporting them to face the new scenario in higher education represented by entrepreneurial and innovational demands. Theoretical contributions: They consist on a debate on how universities in Brazil are strategically managing their practices in order to adapt to a new era in higher education throughout the development of dynamic capabilities. Relevance/originality: This research provides an in‐depth process analysis including the microfoundations of dynamic capabilities to the development and the advance of the third mission of the universities, contributing to the study’s originality. Management contributions: The managemental contribution of this study is to offer a view of new modes and practices for other universities that are seeking to operate in an entrepreneurial dimension.
... The burgeoning literature on university-based technological innovation has revealed a plethora of modalities and channels for the transfer and commercialization of academic technology and science [Siegel et al. (2007); Teixeira and Mota (2012); Bengoa et al. (2021); Bolzani et al. (2021); Cerver Romero et al. (2021); Feola et al. (2021); Geuna and Muscio (2009); Good et al. (2020); Perkmann et al. (2013); Unger et al. (2020); Wright (2014)]. While space restrictions prevent us from elaborating this literature in detail here, in Fig. 1 we map key themes synthesized from that literature by highlighting the con°uence of activities at the interface of technology commercialization processes, IP management practices, and the normal activities of technical universities, where our paper makes an intellectual and practical contribution to the literature. ...
Discussion in the scholarly literature about partnerships between entrepreneurs and universities for the creation of technological spinouts, and for helping universities to extract more value from their technology-related intellectual property, is lively. However, the literature exhibits a gap in understanding how business schools may participate in the process of technology commercialization by facilitating the creation of intellectual property (IP) rights. In this conceptual paper we seek to fill this gap in three ways. First, we offer some novel conceptual insights by studying the partnership between technical universities and entrepreneurs using a multi-level approach, incorporating a phenomenological research method, through the lenses of several established theoretical perspectives from the domains of economics, social science, and management: the division of labor, motivation, the nature of the firm, organization, and IP. Second, we develop a working hypothesis focused on learning reinforcement through multiple
organizational levels that predicts how business schools may play a prominent role in technology commercialization, together with the theoretical conditions under which they may do so. Third, we offer an IP management model under which business schools, as such, may create and appropriate financial value by generating innovation-related IP that may be
transferred to enterprises. Our research reveals a misalignment between promising approaches
to university-based technological innovation suggested by normative theory and typical approaches associated with extant practice; and it also highlights a strategic issue, which is that the performance of most universities in the domain of technology transfer is disappointing. We suggest a way to address this misalignment, and this strategic issue, which is through the establishment of what we label as “Technology Innovation Laboratories” in business schools—analogous to technical laboratories usually associated with technical universities—that could generate various types of product- or service-related IP. This type of intellectual property—typically different from invention IP, and which we label here as “business IP”—could be exchanged for equity in spinouts or royalties from licensing, similar to the manner in which the invention IP of technical universities is usually commercialized.
... Prior empirical evidence reports that financial subsidies are essential for small businesses at the translation stage, a need currently served by the IKC. Siegel, Veugelers, and Wright (2007) suggested that public policy ToC adopt proof of concept (PoC) project financing approaches that address the very early-stage information asymmetries in universities' new tech that are most challenging. Munari et al. (2016) suggest that PoC grants offered at regional and national scales are important to enable small businesses to access lab facilities. ...
How to commercialize university research and create positive socioeconomic impact is a fundamental research question that is under explored. Considerable public funds are invested in universities globally to create knowledge and then to explore its viability to exploit commercial value through supporting entrepreneurship. We explore how publicly funded research and commercialization of projects promote university's science and technology (S&T) initiatives. Qualitative case studies, involving 45 interviews, examine three UK government-funded Innovation Knowledge Centres' (IKCs) roles in commercializing three different emerging disruptive technologies: cyber security, digital construction and synthetic biology. An improved entrepreneurial finance ("entfin") ecosystem is the catalyst to promote innovation, through public funds to empower industry and deliver an effective finance escalator. A "WHO" policy analysis framework examines: the "Why" rationale for public investment; "How" process of translation; and "Outcomes". This identified how Entrepreneurial Finance combined with Intermediaries, Infrastructure, Training and Leadership impacts scientific research commercialization. We reveal several inter connectors that link maturity of projects, their locality and outcome horizons. Universities play an important intermediary role, regionally and globally to connect the wider entfin ecosystems. The conclusions suggest that government needs to improve the policy mix across university ecosystem actors to improve long horizon investment. ARTICLE HISTORY
... En los últimos años, las actividades de transferencia de conocimiento y tecnología (KTT, de sus siglas en inglés knowlegde and technology transfer) han recibido cada vez más atención (Bengoa et al., 2020). La explicación detrás de este impulso y creciente interés la encontramos, por un lado, en los modelos económicos actuales, los cuales hacen una clara apuesta por la investigación como fuente de innovación que redunda en mayor competitividad y progreso (Rojas, 2007;Siegel et al., 2007). Desde el punto de vista de la universidad, otro incentivo lo encontramos en que dichos contratos constituyen para las universidades una fuente adicional de ingresos que les permite seguir investigando y generando nuevo conocimiento (Etzkowitz y Leydesdorff, 2000;Friedman y Silberman, 2003;Gunasekara, 2006). ...
This article investigates the factors that shape researchers willingness to engage in university-industry R&D contracts. The case of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia is examined. These contracts allow students to work in real-life projects, in which a group of highly qualified academics confront theory and practice to generate solutions for the business sector, thus enriching traditional academic practices. The instrument used in this study consists of five dimensions: attitude towards KTT (knowledge and technology transfer) activities, expectation of contribution, promotion incentives, university culture and regulation, and supporting KTT services. The sample comprises 184 professors. The relevance of each factor related with the participation of researchers in R&D contracts (period 2010-2015) is identified through a structural equation model. The key findings emphasize the role played by culture and a favourable normative framework for KTT activities, while support services seem to negatively affect researchers engagement in R&D contracts. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations do not have a significant effect on the participation in R&D contracts.
... The content of TC development schemes can be decided considering the schemes used in practice [9][10][11][12][13]. Some schemes were analysed in scientific articles [14][15][16][17][18]. The models of TT were analysed in scientific articles [19][20][21] and used by different organizations responsible for TT transfer [22][23][24][25][26] to connect an understanding of the technology transfer (TT) process to the concept. ...
To turn technologies into successful products, it is necessary to understand the development process from ideas to the market and to know how to measure performance. Performance measurement is critical for technology developers and investors in monitoring whether performance meets expectations to make decisions about actions for improving R&D characteristics. This article emphasizes indicators for R&D project performance measurement, especially relevant for measuring project performance in company, start-up and spin-off companies, where the project is perceived as an independent business unit. A clear set of indicators for measuring and controlling the performance of R&D projects for policy representatives would allow them to identify problematic areas in the implementation of R&D projects and to make well-aimed decisions for the promotion and financing of technology development. What indicators should be used to measure the performance of R&D projects? Attempts to find the answer to the question in science were unsuccessful. This article aims to select indicators for measuring the performance of R&D projects and identify and compare their relevance among US and German experts. Research is carried out in different countries, and their results create opportunities for mutual learning and more intensive international cooperation in technological development. In order to achieve a goal, essential decision-making points in R&D projects were identified, and a general set of R&D performance evaluation indicators were prepared based on a literature analysis. Later, two groups of experts from the US and Germany selected from the general list indicators suitable only for evaluating R&D projects and evaluated their relevance. The obtained evaluation results of the US and German experts were processed using the MCDM method and compared.
... Una de las estrategias implementadas por las universidades para gestionar la transferencia de conocimiento y tecnología como elemento sustancial de la misión universitaria ha sido la creación de oficinas especializadas, que faciliten la comercialización y transferencia de los resultados de investigación (Olaya, Berbegal-Mirabent y Duarte, 2014). Estos espacios se conocen con el nombre de oficinas de transferencia de tecnología (ott) u oficinas de transferencia de resultados de investigación (otri), y son concebidas como entes intermediarios entre los proveedores de innovaciones (científicos universitarios) y aquellos que pueden potencialmente ayudar a comercializarlos; es decir, empresas, empresarios y capitalistas de riesgo (Siegel, Veugelers y Wright, 2007). ...
La intención de este libro es recoger los contenidos, los procesos y los emprendimientos de la innovación social. Cierto es que una revisión de los discursos y las representaciones sobre innovación, y particularmente sobre la innovación social, deja una sensación de confusión en las formas y las estrategias para acotar el objeto. Tal vez cueste admitirlo, pero esa sí que es una característica transversal en los tiempos actuales: el hecho de que los procesos, los objetos, los métodos y los enfoques tienden a rechazar las definiciones, las delimitaciones y las acotaciones definitivas. Sin embargo, un mínimo de bases se requiere para que podamos hablar de cualquier tema. Las diversas experiencias, procedencias y enmarcaciones conceptuales (que no teóricas) respecto a la innovación invitan a avanzar en sus páginas con una visión abierta, flexible y que busque, no tanto teorías definitivas, sino fuerzas de interacción que tienden a esa acotación, delimitación y definición que mencionamos anteriormente como retos del trabajo de investigación actual en el ámbito de lo social.
This chapter presents a Technology Transfer Model proposed for the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico's most important industrial city. The model includes the key managerial, linkage, technological, and research elements required for university–industry (U-I) technology transfer. The convenience of this model is that it takes advantage of the accumulated capabilities in Ciudad Juarez universities to improve the products and processes in manufacturing firms located in the city using technology and knowledge transfer, which could lead to the economic and technological development of the region.
The successful transformation of science and technology (S&T) achievements is relies on the evaluation of their value by the stakeholders in the S&T market. Both excessively high prices set by the patent holder and excessively low prices offered by potential buyers can hinder the successful transfer of S&T achievements. This study, based on the Triple Helix Innovation Theory and Technology Transfer Theory, empirically examines the factors that influence the price of patent technology transfer, using a sample of 10 key Chinese universities from 2018 to 2022. Research found that the inherent quality of patents and the external market environment both have a positive and significant impact on the price of patented technology transfer in universities. Furthermore, government support plays a significant role in moderating the effect of patent quality and market transaction factors on the price of patent technology transfer in universities. Additionally, there is industry heterogeneity in the pricing of patent technology transfer. Therefore, the policy focus for promoting patent technology transfer in Chinese universities should be placed on enhancing patent quality, standardizing the technology transfer process, improving patent information disclosure, and strengthening government support to effectively implement policy assistance.
Bu çalışmanın amacı teknopark ve teknoloji transfer ofislerinin KOBİ’lerin sürdürülebilirliğindeki rolünü analiz etmek ve KOBİ’lerin bu süreci verimli bir şekilde ilerletebilmeleri için uygun bir yol haritası ortaya koymaktır . Bu çalışmada Düzce Teknopark bünyesindeki KOBİ’ler ve yönetim ofisinde çalışan uzman personeller ile görüşmeler gerçekleştirilmiştir. Bu doğrultuda KOBİ’lerin sürdürülebilirliğine yönelik destekler ve teknopark-teknoloji transfer ofisi yapılanmasının KOBİ’lerin sürdürülebilirliğindeki rolü incelenmektedir. Verilerin toplanması aşamasında bire bir görüşme tekniği kullanılmıştır. Araştırmanın örneklemini Düzce Teknopark ve Düzce Teknoloji transfer ofisinin hizmet sağladığı KOBİ’ler ve yönetim ofisi uzmanları oluşturmaktadır. Bu çalışma sonucunda teknopark ve teknoloji transfer ofisinin destek sağladığı firmaların finansal sürdürülebilirliğine ve personel istihdamı sürdürülebilirliğinde sorunlar yaşadıkları görülmektedir. Ayrıca ulusal ve uluslararası fon mekanizmalarına erişim noktasında firmaların problemler yaşadığı ortaya çıkmıştır. KOBİ’lerin sürdürülebilirlik düzeyini arttırmak için izledikleri politikalar incelenmiş ve bu süreçten daha fazla verim alabilmeleri adına yol haritaları ortaya konulmuştur.
The literature on entrepreneurship and technology transfer highlights several factors that impact the creation of university Spin-Offs. However, there is a limited body of research that specifically explores the impact of university-industry collaborations on the performance creation of these spinoffs. This study aims to fill this gap by examining the effects of university-industry collaborations on the creation of Spin-Offs from two perspectives: the number of university collaborations with different companies and the number of previous collaborations between the same university-industry dyad. The research employs joint patents as a source to measure the university-industry collaborations and statistical methods to empirically examine the impact of these collaborations on Spin-Off creation. The study is based on data from 108 universities between the years 2014 and 2017. The findings of this study reveal that both the number of collaborations and specially the presence of previous collaborations between the university and industry have a positive effect on the creation of Spin-Offs. These results suggest that universities and companies should consider these findings when formulating their strategies or policies for technology transfer and innovation management by encouraging university-industry collaborations.
Universities have not always played a leading role in the economic development of regions through entrepreneurship. This is because they have evolved over time from being organizations dedicated solely to teaching and research. Previous studies have focused on how universities adopted an entrepreneurial orientation. This chapter explores the pathways to develop entrepreneurial capabilities influenced by context and stakeholders. This chapter is based on semi-structured interviews from different actors involved in the universities’ re-building of entrepreneurial capabilities allocated in Belgium, Colombia, Ecuador, and Uganda. The chapter proposes an interesting view of university entrepreneurial capabilities.
For centuries, the collaboration between higher education and industry (or academic engagement) has become an exciting topic for all related stakeholders, such as researchers, policymakers, or entrepreneurs. Nonetheless, there has yet to be any comprehensive understanding of the extant literature on this topic. Motivated by this gap, this study applies the bibliometric method to review all related documents of academic engagement indexed in the Scopus database between 1978 and 2021. The results showed that the period from 2018 to 2021 identified itself as a golden era with the palpable attention of scholars who contributed to approximately 80% of the related topic. The countries ranked in the top five with dominant publications include the US, the UK, Spain, Italy and Germany. The co-word analysis also recognized technology transfer, research and development, and entrepreneurial university and university-industry relations as the key topics focused on academic engagement works of literature.
Scholars have called for a better understanding of the performance consequences of individual ambidexterity. In this work, we utilize the context of academic entrepreneurship to study how and why individual ambidexterity impacts academic entrepreneurship performance, and whether relational context moderates this link. Alongside the benefits, we argue that higher levels of individual ambidexterity generate switching, coordination and cognitive costs that can harm performance. Acknowledging the simultaneous presence of varying costs and benefits over the range of individual ambidexterity, we propose that individual ambidexterity has an inverted U‐shaped relationship with academic entrepreneurship performance, in which moderate levels produce superior performance. We further argue that relational context enhances the performance benefits of individual ambidexterity through providing access to novel knowledge and resources. In doing so, it shifts the turning point so that a higher level of individual ambidexterity produces peak academic entrepreneurship performance before the relationship turns. Utilizing data on Taiwanese scientists, we find strong evidence of an inverted U‐shaped relationship between individual ambidexterity and academic entrepreneurship performance, and for the moderating role of relational context.
Growing competition among higher education institutions (HEIs) explains their increasing interest in reinforcing strategies by incorporating knowledge transfer (KT) objectives into their strategic plans. However, this strategic formulation must be aligned with the implementation of performance management systems (PMSs) to properly achieve KT objectives. Thus, the aim of this paper is to examine whether aligning PMSs with KT strategic objectives improves KT performance while misalignment worsens it. To that end, PMSs are measured with respect to planning; cybernetic control; policies and procedures and reward and compensation elements. KT is specified as R&D contracts, extended patents, patents and licences. With a sample of 3812 Spanish university lecturers, we test the theoretical positive and negative effects of PMS–KT strategy alignment and misalignment on KT performance respectively. The results show not only that this alignment is effective for KT strategy implementation but also that misalignment has unintended effects on the achievement of long‐term KT objectives. Therefore, lecturers' behaviour is influenced by how closely KT strategy and PMSs are aligned. The findings are useful for managers and academics to develop PMSs that effectively contribute to the achievement of universities' strategic goals.
The fragmentation of the literature on intermediaries between the university and industry has led to a disorganised and confused theoretical landscape. This research addresses this gap in the literature by proposing an analytical tool that can be used as guidance. For this purpose, this work provides a taxonomy of these intermediaries and classifies them into five different classes. To this end, we review 125 studies on university–industry cooperation (UIC) intermediaries. In addition to the general and innovation-related information, we extracted specific data related to the relevant UIC intermediaries from each article, i.e. the type(s) of intermediary addressed and its identified functions. This taxonomy is based on twenty-two functions identified in the UIC intermediary literature and thirteen UIC intermediary types. The five proposed classes of intermediaries are specialised in five different roles. This integrative background can be applied in future research and in the definition of policy-based guidelines.
The purpose of this chapter is to assist readers in demystifying the investment process in start-ups and early-stage companies. The authors address this topic from both a start-up and investor perspective and provide further insight on determinant factors of the investment decision-making process. While focusing on the Canadian regulatory landscape, the authors emphasize the importance of establishing an intellectual property strategy (MVIP) early on, enhancing the ability of start-ups to attract capital from investors, as well as to foster competition and productivity.
Most of the technology from universities (PT) related to technological innovation often fails to enter the market. This problem then becomes the basis and object of improvement in technology-based entrepreneurial practices (technopreneurs). Learning is carried out through Independence Learning Campus Independence (MBKM) which converts courses according to training subjects in collaboration with PUI UNS and BPPT. This practice is a model of participatory and collaborative learning, in which students are directly involved in solving existing case studies and act as perpetrators of technology commercialization and become technopreneurs. Students are initially given training materials in accordance with the curriculum and direct learning from existing tenants. As a result, through this learning process, students can design business process proposals that exist in tenants. The success of this learning method was assessed based on technopreneur analysis from students in answering problems faced by tenants based on aspects of product technology innovation, product development, business development, and its implementation at BMC. One of the tenants who is the object of the case study in this study is the start-up PT. EKM who have problems with the commercialization of technology in the case of konverter kit products.
Managing intellectual property (IP) value appropriation remains a central challenge for business-to-business (B2B) networks due to B2B co-creation prospects for improved value-in-exchange and value-in-use for co-creation beneficiaries. This article aims to explore the management practices of B2B networks that enhance IP value from B2B co-creation. Using semi-structured interviews with sixteen IP management experts from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the article proposes an integrated model of management strategies and guidelines for B2B co-creation with respect to IP value. The model posits that at the intra-organisational level, the main enabling processes for value appropriation are building communication skills, implementing hiring processes, and developing management systems for negotiations, talents, and intellectual assets, respectively. This level benefits from priorities placed on selecting strategic partners and fostering learning cultures for knowledge, technology, and venture co-creation processes. For the inter-organisational level, the proposed enabling processes are pursuing research funds and creating optimum designs for technology development and market positioning, respectively. Priorities at this level involve aligning complementary resources, developing clear agreements, and utilising supportive capabilities for technology and market co-creation.
The connection between medical entrepreneurship and the triple helix model has not been well reported and investigated. This gap inspired the quest to expand the knowledge frontier in this poorly reported field. The chapter therefore investigates the connection between medical entrepreneurship and the triple helix model in the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria. To develop the chapter, a survey research design was adopted, while relying on primary data from stakeholders in the health sector. A total of seven hundred and ninety-four (794) completed and returned questionnaires as the sample size of this research study. The cross-sectional data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics, multiple regression, and correlation coefficients, which revealed that the overall regression model was fit with the aid of SSPS Software. This finding indicates that there is a significant relationship between medical entrepreneurship and the triple helix model. The results show that there is no significant relationship between sensing capabilities and entrepreneurship growth (β = 0.193, t = 5.235, p < .05). The chapter concluded that medical entrepreneurship has long been recognized as an important economic activity because it proactively and innovatively provides unique healthcare products and services to diverse stakeholders in the healthcare sector. The chapter therefore recommends, among others, that the government create an enabling environment and financial support interventions to stimulate new medical-oriented start-ups based on the research findings.
Background:
Intellectual Property (IP) management is a fundamental element in putting intellectual property to work for the public good. This study aimed at assessing the perception of the research community on intellectual Property Management (IPM) capacity in universities of health and allied sciences, and health research institutions in Tanzania.
Methods:
A total of 148 respondents which included scientists, researchers and postgraduate students from 18 institutions in Tanzania returned the filled in self-administered online questionnaire (59.4% response rate).
Results:
Most respondents (76.5%) were of the view that social and economic development are the priorities of their institutions but not intellectual property (IP) commercialisation as only a few (18%) reported that their institutions have arrangement with local industries and 22% said that their institutions have functioning intellectual Property Management Office (IPMO). About 30% of the respondents reported that IP policies exist in their institutions. In most cases, respondents were of the view that the need for effective management of IP (86.7%) triggered the institution's decision to have IP policy. Among the respondents who stated that their institutions have IP policy, slightly over one third to a half acknowledged that their institutions' IP policies intend to regulate mechanisms for benefit sharing and IP ownership.Among those who reported that their institutions had IP policies, only 12.8% indicated that the policies were being implemented. Majority of respondents (80.4%) knew the existence of employment contracts but, only 28.4% signed the contract and 12.8% were well informed that they had been employed to invent. Over 20% of respondents said that their institutions had the capacity to exploit and manage IP and only a quarter of respondents reported to have capacity for IP management. Less than 40% of respondents admitted that their institutions had entrepreneurship capacity and 30% affirmed that their institutions were capable of establishing IPMO.
Conclusion:
Opinions of the respondents indicate that universities and health research institutions in Tanzania have inadequate capacity for IPM due to inadequate or lack of frameworks, mechanisms, structures and resources for protection of generated IP. Technical and financial support are needed to strengthen capacity for IPM in universities and health research institutions in Tanzania.
The nurturing of an entrepreneurial university is essential since it creates an important place to teach the key themes of entrepreneurship. This paper provides a literature review and discusses the various definitions of the entrepreneurial university and its development factors. This paper uses [Kearnay’s (1999). Enterprising Ways to Teach and Learn, a series of books, Enterprise Principles. Enterprise Design Associates. Tasmania, Australia: North Hobart] pedagogical approach on the development of the entrepreneurial university to create an empirical survey administered to 250 university professors in Tunisia. The results of this study illustrate that Kearnay’s pedagogical approach [Kearney, P (1999). Enterprising Ways to Teach and Learn, a series of books, Enterprise Principles. Enterprise Design Associates. Tasmania, Australia: North Hobart] (responsive, experiential, reflective, and cooperative pedagogy) positively influences the development of the entrepreneurial university. We conclude with an original teaching method framework to cultivate an entrepreneurial spirit in university students to facilitate an entrepreneurial university.
Technology transfer (TT) is a mechanism designed to accurately make knowledge, inno-15 vations, and advancements available to the general population. TT is conducted through scientific 16 papers, educational and governmental initiatives, and the commercialization of technology. The TT 17 process per se is complex, involving many stakeholders and factors that can impact implementation. 18 Feasibility studies are needed to assess the types of technology that can be transferred, the economic 19 options to be chosen, and to stimulate the receptive part, making understandable the whole transfer 20 flow. Furthermore, TT involves a dynamic mechanism that has advanced with the development of 21 technology, with different linear, non-linear, and alternative models being proposed and scientifi-22 cally validated, and with the possibility of addressing different perceptions of the factors involved. 23 The international TT level, as well as the level of innovation in the economic context, differs from 24 nation to nation. The need for this paper is based on the lack of a comprehensive detailed 25 presentation of the TT infrastructural concept, approached in a novel and in-depth way 26 by assessing international TT, technology flow, technology distribution and expansion, 27 collaborative networks, TT centers and TT models, regional operational programs etc., 28 all of which are related to national/international legislation and sustainable develop-29 ment. The deficit of representation and implementation of this concept in Romania was 30 also covered, the assessment providing the current status and suggesting the need to 31 develop and optimize the implementation of TT in this country. 32
This article examines the current roles of European states, markets, and universities in knowledge production and review the critiques of academic entrepreneurialism and neoliberal market influences on European higher education. It includes discussion on states and supranational organizations, Bologna Process, Lisbon Strategy, industry, technology transfer as well as critiques of knowledge production in Europe.
For the past number of years, academic entrepreneurship has become one of the most widely studied topics in the entrepreneurship literature. Yet, despite all the research that has been conducted to date, there has not been a systematic attempt to analyze critically the factors which lie behind successful business spin-offs from university research. In this book, a group of academic thought-leaders in the field of technology transfer examine a number of areas critical to the promotion of start-ups on campus. Through a series of case studies, they examine current policies, structures, program initiatives and practices of fourteen international universities to develop a theory of successful academic entrepreneurship, with the aim of helping other universities to enhance the quality of their university transfer programs. This book is a valuable resource for university research administrators, technology transfer office professionals, academic entrepreneurs, incubator management officials, R&D managers, venture capitalists, researchers, policymakers, and others involved in the commercialization of intellectual property.
The political and economic aspect is an important dimension of the holistic conceptual framework of academic and educational entrepreneurship, as outlined in Fig. 1 in the chapter “Introduction to Holistic Academic and Educational Entrepreneurship”, given that a state’s political-economic framework is an important determinant of its institutions, which includes universities. The importance of the political economy for academic and educational entrepreneurship has become even more important in the context of the additional role that universities have taken on over the past decades, namely, the so-called “third mission”, with academic entrepreneurship participating in the socio-economic development of the local communities (see, e.g. Etzkowitz & Leydesdorff, 2000). Given this additional role, the nature of university–industry relations and knowledge transfer has become an increasingly important strategic issue for university rectors, as well as for politicians and policymakers, both as a source of revenue for universities, and as a policy tool for governments in their economic development policies (Shore & McLauchlan, 2012).
This paper examines the link between the composition of university entrepreneurial ecosystems and performance of higher education institutions (HEIs) in academic entrepreneurship, specifically founding academic spinoff companies. The paper studies a sample of 160 UK HEIs and their university entrepreneurial ecosystems related to formation of 784 academic spinoffs. It employs social network analysis (SNA) to inspect the composition and connections between university entrepreneurial ecosystems. It finds that HEIs based in better developed university entrepreneurial ecosystems are associated with formation of greater numbers of academic spinoff companies. The best performing ecosystems are based in the Greater South East region. It is concluded that policymakers need to recognize the importance of the composition of the university entrepreneurial ecosystems and the role it plays in academic entrepreneurship.
This paper investigates how university spinout companies develop. The capabilities framework is used to investigate the development of nine different spinout companies. Each venture is found to move through a number of distinct phases and to come up against "generic" problems whilst attempting to move from one phase to another. We identify four critical junctures that spinout companies need to overcome to succeed. The entrepreneur or the entrepreneurial team need to possess key entrepreneurial capabilities to overcome these critical junctures.
The increase of entrepreneurial activity within academia has raised concerns that the research orientation of universities might become ‘contaminated’ by the application-oriented needs of industry. Empirical evidence on this concern is scarce and ambiguous. We examine whether entrepreneurial and scientific performance in academia can be reconciled. Our empirical findings (KU Leuven, Belgium) suggest that both activities do not hamper each other; engagement in entrepreneurial activities coincides with increased publication outputs, without affecting the nature of the publications involved. As resources increase, this interaction becomes more significant, pointing towards a Matthew-effect.We finally suggest that balancing both activities further depends on the institutional policies deployed.
A study explored entrepreneurship in theresearch university. The data were collected in 2 surveys conducted in 1985 -one of a sample of life scientists located in major research universities andthe other of key administrators in the same universities. Five types ofacademic entrepreneurship were identified: 1. engaging in externally fundedresearch, 2. earning supplemental income, 3. gaining industry support foruniversity research, 4. obtaining patents or generating trade secrets, and 5.forming or holding equity in private companies based on a faculty member's ownresearch. Individual attitudes and characteristics were the most importantpredictors of large-scale science and supplemental income, while local groupnorms played a more important role in predicting active involvement incommercialization. (Publisher abstract)
This paper examines the influences of university organizational structure on technology transfer performance. The analysis treats the organizational structure of the technology-transfer office as an independent variable that accounts, in part, for measured differences in inter-institutional patenting, licensing, and sponsored research activities. We derive and investigate three hypotheses that link attributes of organizational form – information processing capacity, coordination capability and incentive alignment – to technology transfer outcomes. A detailed analysis of three major research universities – Johns Hopkins University, Pennsylvania State University, and Duke University – provides evidence of the existence of alternative organizational structures. The data also suggest that these organizational capabilities result in differences in technology transfer activity.
This paper examines the role of offices of technology transfer (OTT) in 12 U.S. universities in 1998 in commercializing research
results in the form of patents, licenses, and start-ups of new companies. We study the organization and place of OTTs within
the university structure, the process of technology transfer, and the staffing and funding of the office. Data were collected
through a mail questionnaire followed up through telephone interviews. We also conducted a statistical analysis of data for
170 U.S. universities, hospitals, and research institutes for the period 1991–1996. Our findings suggest that technology transfer
from universities to the commercial sector needs to be understood in its broader context. The primary purpose of a technology
transfer program is for the university to assist its researchers in disseminating research results for the public good. Success
in this endeavor is only partially reflected in income generated for the university or the number of business start-ups. The
degree of success depends not only on the nature of the interface between the university and the business community but also
on the receptivity in the surrounding community as well as the culture, organization, and incentives within the universities
themselves.
The success of business incubators and technology parks in university settings is often determined by how well technology is transferred from the labs to their startup firms. University technology transfer offices (UTTOs) function as “technology intermediaries” in fulfilling this role. Yet, entrepreneurship theory and research on the role of the UTTO in business incubation and new venture formation is sparse. To move the research along, we use grounded theory to build a framework to address two questions: (a) Which UTTOs' structures and licensing strategies are most conducive to new venture formation; and (b) how are the various UTTOs' structures and licensing strategies correlated with each other. Our findings reveal a complex set of relationships between UTTO structure and strategies, new venture formation, and business incubation.Based on interviews with 128 UTTO directors, we show that whereas for-profit UTTO structures are positively related to new venture formation, traditional university and nonprofit UTTO structures are more likely to correlate with the presence of university-based business incubators. Licensing-for-equity strategy is positively related to new venture formation while sponsored research licensing strategy is negatively related. Interestingly, the licensing-for-cash strategy, the most prevalent transfer strategy, is least correlated to new venture formation. A content analysis of UTTO mission statements also revealed an overemphasis on royalty income and an underemphasis on entrepreneurship. The paper concludes with a discussion that outlines some of the implications and limitations of our model.
The increase of entrepreneurial activity within academia has raised concerns that the research orientation of universities might become 'contaminated' by the application-oriented needs of industry. Empirical evidence on this concern is scarce and ambiguous. We examine whether entrepreneurial and scientific performance in academia can be reconciled. Our empirical findings (K.U.Leuven, Belgium) suggest that both activities do not hamper each other; engagement in entrepreneurial activities coincides with increased publication outputs, without affecting the nature of the publications involved. As resources increase, this interaction becomes more significant, pointing towards a Matthew-effect. We finally suggest that balancing both activities further depends on the institutional policies deployed.
Proponents of the Bayh-Dole Act argue that unless universities have the right to license patentable inventions, many results from federally funded research would never be transferred to industry. Our survey of U.S. research universities supports this view. Results point to the embryonic state of most technologies licensed and the need for inventor cooperation in the commercialization process. Thus, for most university inventions, there is a moral hazard problem with regard to inventor effort. Our theoretical analysis shows that for such inventions, development would not occur unless the inventor's income is tied to the licensee's output by payments such as royalties or equity. Sponsored research can also be critical to commercialization, but it alone does not solve the inventor's moral hazard problem.
This article provides an inductive empirical investigation into how university high-technology spinout companies develop. A university spinout (USO) is defined as a venture founded by employees of the university around a core technological innovation which had initially been developed at the university. Data were collected using in-depth face-to-face and telephone interviews with representatives from the nine USO, as well as each of their financial investors and seven associated universities over the twelve-month period from July 2001 to July 2002. Critical junctures refers to a complex problem that occurs at a point along a new high-technology venture's expansion path preventing it from achieving the transition from one development phase to the next. Critical junctures occur precisely because of the conflict between a USO venture's existing level and type of resources, capabilities and social capital, and those required to perform in the proceeding phase of development. As a result of the idiosyncratic development of each USO through each development stage, deficient social capital, resource weaknesses and inadequate internal capabilities were all dependent upon the unique evolutionary path each USO followed.
Surveys in 1988, 1992 and 1994 of enterprises created by scientists show that: these spin-off enterprises from research laboratories are robust, although they do not necessarily lead to job creation; a precondition for the development of these firms is that they establish networks of different players; firms that increased their co-operation arrangements with various laboratories were the most successful; it is important to integrate clients from the innovation design phase; and there is a crucial role for public funding during a firm's start-up and initial development stage.
This is a book about the formation, development, and success or failure of new high technology companies, focusing on those that grew under the auspices of entrepreneurs from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston at the end of World War Two. Trained in high-technology in MIT's labs and academic departments or in the local industrial marvel that became known as the "Route 128 phenomenon", these entrepreneurs took their technical and innate skills with them to found their own new companies. The book is based on extensive empirical research on these firms conducted over a period of twenty-five years and much previously written work on the subject, and is the culmination of such earlier work and synthesized findings. It centers on people, technology, money, and markets, and its main goal is to provide insights that may eventually contribute to fulfilling other entrepreneurs' dreams and other communities' hopes. The book chapters comprise three connected sections - treating birth, transition and growth, and success or failure.
We develop a model that clari…es the respective advantages and disad- vantages of academic and private-sector research. Our model assumes full protection of intellectual property rights at all stages of the development process, and hence does not rely on lack of appropriability or spillovers to generate a rationale for academic research. Instead, we focus on control- rights considerations, and argue that the fundamental tradeobetween academia and the private sector is one of creative control versus directed- ness. By serving as a precommitment mechanism that allows scientists to freely pursue their own interests, academia can be indispensable for early-stage research. At the same time, the private sector's ability to direct scientists towards higher-payoactivities makes it more attractive for later-stage research.
Analyzes the effects of entrepreneurial team dynamics onthe performance of academic spinoffs. First, the definition of entrepreneurialteams is offered, and the link between team structure and performance isexamined. Next, data from a detailed field study of ten academic spinoffs inFlanders are used to explore the central research question. The data indicate that some researchers who are actively involved in thefirst phase of the spinoff process (i.e., market opportunity recognition)choose to stay with the parent firm instead of completing the spinoff process.Other researchers become impatient as the spinoff attempts to prove itsviability and leave the project. Once the spinoff has proven its viability, theremaining researchers stay and take the spinoff to maturity. In other cases,surrogate entrepreneurs are attracted to set up the venture. As a whole, the findings suggest that a team's heterogeneity changes as itevolves through the various stages of the spinoff process. Although newadditions to the team bring unique experiences to the spinoff, they generallyshare the initial team members' view of the business of launching spinoffs.(SAA)
This paper develops five alternative structural ‘models’ for formal efforts aimed at spinning off new companies from universities, government laboratories, and other research and development organizations. In various ways the models combine the roles of the technology originator, the entrepreneur, the R&D organization itself, and the venture investor. The paper also presents the policies and structures of technology commercialization operations from investigations at eight R&D organizations in the United States and the United Kingdom. The data indicate that a R&D organization operating in an environment where venture capital and entrepreneurs are readily available (e.g., MIT and Stanford) can appropriately: (1) exercise a low degree of selectivity in choosing technologies for spin-off creation, and (2) provide a low level of support during the spin-off process. The spin-off process is more difficult in environments where venture capital and entrepreneurs are scarce (e.g., ARCH) and mechanisms for high-selectivity and a high level of support must be in place by the R&D organization to compensate for this scarcity.
There has been a rapid rise in commercial knowledge transfers from universities to practitioners or university–industry technology transfer (UITT), through licensing agreements, research joint ventures, and start-ups. The purpose of this study was to analyze the UITT process and its outcomes. Based on 98 structured interviews of key UITT stakeholders (i.e., university administrators, academic and industry scientists, business managers, and entrepreneurs) at five research universities in two regions of the US, we conclude that these stakeholders have different perspectives on the desired outputs of UITT. More importantly, numerous barriers to effective UITT were identified, including culture clashes, bureaucratic inflexibility, poorly designed reward systems, and ineffective management of university technology transfer offices (TTOs). Based on this qualitative evidence, we provide numerous recommendations for improving the UITT process.
The commercialization of university research has become an increasingly important issue, given concerns regarding licensing and the university's desire to maximize the returns to intellectual property (IP). In this paper, we assess the impact of university resources and routines/capabilities on the creation of spin-out companies. We find that both the number of spin-out companies created and the number of spin-out companies created with equity investment are significantly positively associated with expenditure on intellectual property protection, the business development capabilities of technology transfer offices and the royalty regime of the university. These results highlight the importance not just of resource stocks, but also of developing appropriate capabilities of technology transfer officers in spinning-out companies. The results suggest that universities and policy-makers need to devote attention to the training and recruitment of technology officers with the broad base of commercial skills.
This study extends innovation speed theory by empirically linking the antecedents and outcomes of technology commercialization at universities. Assessing university technology transfer offices (UTTOs) in the U.S., we found that the faster UTTOs can commercialize patent-protected technologies, the greater their licensing revenues streams and the more new ventures they spin off. Furthermore, using commercialization time as a surrogate for innovation speed, we identify several determinants of speed. That is, UTTO resources and the competency in identifying licensees are related to commercialization time. Also, the participation of faculty-inventors in the licensing process is a critical determinant of commercialization time. Illustrating that innovation speed is an antecedent of performance as well as a desired outcome in and of itself, provides support for innovation speed theory.
We consider the managerial and policy implications of the rise of spin-offs at public research institutions (PRIs), based on a knowledge-based view (KBV) of the firm. This framework highlights the importance of knowledge in the creation and development of spin-offs. We argue that in order to understand the development of spin-offs, researchers should focus on “knowledge gaps” these new ventures encounter. Knowledge gaps can occur at different levels of aggregation, including the PRI, spin-off, team, individual, incubator, and at different stages of spin-off development. Based on this framework, we synthesize findings from previous studies and papers in the special issue and offer some suggestions for additional research on spin-offs from PRIs.
This paper investigates the development of university spinout companies (USOs). Employing a case-based research method, our study found that there are two important elements in their development. First, USOs go through a number of distinct phases of activity in their development. Each venture must pass through the previous phase in order to progress to the next one but each phase involves an iterative, non-linear process of development in which there may be a need to revisit some of the earlier decisions and activities. Second, at the interstices between the different phases of development we found that ventures face “critical junctures” in terms of the resources and capabilities they need to acquire to progress to the next phase. The different phases are critical as these ventures cannot develop into the next phase without overcoming each of the junctures. We identify four different critical junctures that spinout companies need to overcome if they are to succeed: opportunity recognition, entrepreneurial commitment, credibility and sustainability.
We develop a theoretical model to explain the specific role of Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) in licensing university inventions. Using a framework where firms have incomplete information on the quality of inventions, we develop a reputation argument for the TTO to reduce the asymmetric information problem. Our results indicate that a TTO is often able to benefit from its capacity to pool innovations across research units (and to build a reputation) within universities. We identify when the technology seller will have an incentive to “shelve” some of the projects, thus raising the buyer's beliefs on expected quality; this results in fewer but more valuable innovations being sold at higher prices. We explain the importance of a critical size for the TTO to be successful as well as the stylized fact that TTOs may lead to fewer licensing agreements but higher income from innovation transfers.
We present quantitative and qualitative evidence on the relative productivity of university technology transfer offices (TTOs). Our empirical results suggest that TTO activity is characterized by constant returns to scale and that environmental and institutional factors explain some of the variation in performance. Productivity may also depend on organizational practices. Unfortunately, there are no quantitative measures available on such practices, so we rely on inductive, qualitative methods to identify them. Based on 55 interviews of 98 entrepreneurs, scientists, and administrators at five research universities, we conclude that the most critical organizational factors are faculty reward systems, TTO staffing/compensation practices, and cultural barriers between universities and firms.
A new organizational entity has emerged at research universities: the technology transfer office (TTO). TTOs were established to facilitate commercial knowledge transfers from universities to practitioners or university/industry technology transfer (UITT). Despite the potential importance of UITT in fostering technological diffusion and as a source of revenue to the university, there has been little systematic analysis of the role of organizational practices in this process. Thus, we rely on an inductive, qualitative approach to identify the key organizational issues in promoting successful knowledge transfers. Based on 55 structured interviews of 98 UITT stakeholders associated with five US research universities, we conclude that there are numerous impediments to effectiveness in UITT: cultural and informational barriers among the three key stakeholder types (university administrators, academics, and firms/entrepreneurs), TTO staffing and compensation practices, and inadequate rewards for faculty involvement in UITT. Two somewhat surprising results are that many faculty members have decided to circumvent the formal UITT process and that involvement in UITT may actually increase the quantity and quality of basic research.
A set of US-based companies is investigated regarding the effectiveness of intellectual property protection mechanisms (IPPMs) in the formation of research partnerships. Patents are the most frequently used IPPM to protect both background and foreground knowledge in partnerships. Other IPPMs are used to protect know-how, especially in the early, forming stages of a partnership. Existing IP titles are quite useful when negotiating new partnerships. IPR negotiations are reported to be more complex in horizontal partnerships and when universities are involved.
This theory paper examines an ex post rationale for the patenting of scientific discoveries. Scientists do not know which firms can make use of their discoveries, and firms do not know which scientific discoveries might be useful to them. To bridge this gap, either or both sides need to engage in costly search activities. Patents increase (decrease) dissemination when the search intensity of firms is sufficiently inelastic (elastic), relative to that of scientists. Patents also facilitate the delegation of search activities to the universities’ technology transfer offices, which enables efficient specialization. Patenting may be thus become a complement to doing research.
University science parks are alleged to stimulate technological spillovers. However, there is virtually no empirical evidence on the impact of these facilities on research productivity. We begin to fill this gap by examining whether companies located on university science parks in the United Kingdom have higher research productivity than observationally equivalent firms not located on a university science park. The preliminary results appear to be consistent with this hypothesis and are robust to the use of alternative econometric procedures to assess relative productivity.
This paper explores the different incubation strategies for spinning-out companies employed by European Research Institutions. More specifically, we focus on two central questions: (i) What differences or similarities are there in the goals and objectives of the Research Institutions for creating new spinout ventures? (ii) What different incubation strategies are employed to achieve these goals in terms of the resources utilized and activities undertaken? The study uses a two-stage approach. In the first stage, seven spin-out services in five European countries were selected for analysis. At the time of the study, each research institute under analysis had only one unique way to stimulate spin-outs. Therefore, the spin-out service and the particular Research Institution they are associated with are interchangeable as units of analysis. Based upon an in-depth analysis of these seven cases, we identified three distinct incubation models of managing the spin-out process: Low Selective, Supportive, and Incubator. The different incubation models have very different resource implications in managing the process. In particular, we identify resource and competence differences relating to finance, organization, human resources, technology, network, and infrastructure. In the second stage, 43 cases were used to validate these incubation models in terms of resources and activities. This process identified two categories that departed from the normative models, namely, the Resource-Deficient group and the Competence-Deficient group.
The transfer of scientific and technological know-how into valuable economic activity has become a high priority on many policy agendas. Industry Science Links (ISLs) are an important dimension of this policy orientation. Over the last decades, multiple insights have been gained (both theoretical and empirical) as to how “effective” ISLs can be fostered through the design and the development of university-based technology transfer organizations (TTOs). In this paper, we document and analyze the evolution of “effective” university-based technology transfer mechanisms. We describe how decentralized organizational approaches and incentives that stimulate the active involvement of the research groups in the exploitation of their research findings might be combined with specialized central services offering intellectual property management and spin-off support. More particularly, we analyze how the creation of:(1)an appropriate balance between centralization and decentralization within academia;(2)the design of appropriate incentive structures for academic research groups;(3)the implementation of appropriate decision and monitoring processes within the TTOhas brought about critical elements in fostering an “effective” commercialization of the academic science base.
The results of this study provide insight into why some universities generate more new companies to exploit their intellectual property than do others. We compare four different explanations for cross-institutional variation in new firm formation rates from university technology licensing offices (TLOs) over the 1994–1998 period—the availability of venture capital in the university area; the commercial orientation of university research and development; intellectual eminence; and university policies. The results show that intellectual eminence, and the policies of making equity investments in TLO start-ups and maintaining a low inventor’s share of royalties increase new firm formation. The paper discusses the implications of these results for university and public policy.
This paper aims to ascertain the influence of social networks in the university spinout phenomenon. With respect to the instrumental role of social networks, it adopts a content contingency perspective pertaining to the role of closure and structural holes, and examines the interaction between relational and structural embeddedness in the academics' network structure. With respect to spinout outcomes, this paper distinguishes between academic exodus and stasis, and differentiates between types of spinouts based on the degree of involvement of the key academics. It also examines networks at the team level of analysis and submits that team-level structural differences exist between the different spinout structures.
Incl. index, bibliographical references
Sumario: Historical setting -- Du Pont: creating the autonomous divisions -- General Motors: creating the general office -- Standard oil company (New Jersey): ad hoc reorganization -- Sears, Roebuck and company: decentralization, planned and unplanned -- Organizational innovation: a comparative analysis -- The spread of the multidivisional structure -- Conclusion: chapters in the history of the great industrial entreprise.
We review and synthesize the burgeoning literature on institutions and agents engaged in the commercialization of university-based intellectual property. These studies indicate that institutional incentives and organizational practices both play an important role in enhancing the effectiveness of technology transfer. We conclude that university technology transfer should be considered from a strategic perspective. Institutions that choose to stress the entrepreneurial dimension of technology transfer need to address skill deficiencies in technology transfer offices (TTOs), reward systems that are inconsistent with enhanced entrepreneurial activity, and education/training for faculty members, post-docs, and graduate students relating to interactions with entrepreneurs. Business schools at these universities can play a major role in addressing these skill and educational deficiencies, through the delivery of targeted programs to technology licensing officers and members of the campus community wishing to launch startup firms.
We present evidence on the relative efficiency of U.K. university technology transfer offices (TTOs) using data envelopment analysis (DEA) and stochastic frontier estimation (SFE). We find that U.K. TTOs exhibit low levels of absolute efficiency. Universities located in regions with higher levels of R&D and GDP appear to be more efficient in technology transfer, implying that there may be regional spillovers in technology transfer. Our results suggest that TTOs may need to be reconfigured into smaller units, since there may be scope for the development of regionally-based, sector focused TTOs. Consistent with qualitative evidence from U.S. TTOs (e.g., Siegel et al. (2003a, b, c)), we find that there may be a need to enhance the skills and capabilities of U.K. TTO managers and licensing professionals.
Using data for 102 U.S. universities, we show that royalty-sharing arrangements (cash flow rights) vary substantially across universities and that they are largely unrelated to most observed university characteristics including faculty size, quality, research funding, technology mix of the faculty, and size of the technology licensing office. However, higher inventors' royalty shares are associated with higher licensing income at the university, controlling for other factors. The results suggest that monetary incentives from inventions have real effects in the university sector. (JEL: O31, O34, L3, L01) Copyright (c) 2004 The European Economic Association.
In recent years, there has been a rapid rise in commercial knowledge transfers from universities to practitioners or university/industry technology transfer (UITT), via licensing agreements, research joint ventures, and startups. In a previous study in 1999, the authors outlined a production function model to assess the relative efficiency of UITT and conducted field research to identify several organizational factors that could enhance the effectiveness of university management of intellectual property portfolios. This paper extends this framework and evaluates the impact of organizational incentives on the effectiveness of UITT. It is found that universities having more attractive incentive structures for UITT, i.e. those that allocate a higher %age of royalty payments to faculty members, tend to be more efficient in technology transfer activities. University administrators who wish to foster UITT should be mindful of the importance of financial incentives.
In this article we examine the influence of formal technology transfer from a public research organization (PRO) on the amount
of capital a spin-off raises at start-up and the increase in capital post start-up. We examine these relationships using a
unique sample of 135 spin-offs from PROs across five European countries. Our findings suggest that spin-offs with formal technology
transfer start with a larger amount of capital but subsequently do not raise more capital than spin-offs without formal technology
transfer.
The paper offers a new theoretical framework to examine the role of intermediaries between creators and potential users of new inventions. Using a model of university-industry technology transfer, we demonstrate that technology transfer offices can provide an opportunity to economize on a critical component of efficient innovation investments: the expertise to locate new, external inventions and to overcome the problem of sorting ‘profitable’ from ‘unprofitable’ ones. The findings may help explain the surge in university patenting and licensing since the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980. Furthermore, the study identifies several limitations to the potential efficiency of intermediation in innovation.
ZUSAMMENFASSUNG - In diesem Papier stellen wir ein neues theoretisches Modell zur Analyse der Rolle von Intermediären zwischen Erfindern und potentiellen Nutzern von Erfindungen vor. Für den Transfer von Erfindungen aus Universitäten in den Industriebereich zeigen wir, daß Technologietransfer-Stellen den Marktteilnehmern die Möglichkeit bieten, sich die Kosten für den Aufbau der Expertise, neue externe Erfindungen zu lokalisieren und evaluieren, zu teilen. Die Ergebnisse unserer Studie können dazu beitragen, die signifikante Zunahme der Universitätspatente und - lizensen seit dem Bayh-Dole-Act von 1980 in den USA zu erklären. Darüber hinaus diskutieren wir Wohlfahrtswirkungen der Aktivität von Innovations-Intermediären.
University technology transfer offices (henceforth, TTOs) play a critical role in the diffusion of innovation and the development of new technology infrastructure. Studies of the relative efficiency of TTOs have been based on licensing output measures and data from a single country. In contrast, we present the first cross-country comparison of the relative performance of TTOs, based on stochastic multiple output distance functions. The additional dimension of output considered is the university's propensity to generate start-up companies, based on technologies developed at these institutions. We find that US universities are more efficient than UK universities and that the production process is characterized by either decreasing or constant returns to scale. Universities with a medical school and an incubator are closer to the frontier.
Using patent data, this work provides an initial empirical investigation into university production of agricultural biotechnology patents. We develop a consistent theoretical methodology for understanding the university patent production process and then estimate count data econometric models of university-owned agricultural biotechnology patents on a series of explanatory variables. The zero inflated negative binomial econometric model used allows inclusion of all major universities, rather than merely those dedicated to agricultural research. The results demonstrate the importance of the US land grant university infrastructure, technology transfer offices, and star scientists. [JEL Codes: L300- Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise: General Q160- Agricultural Technology: Agricultural Extension Services C240- Econometric Methods: Single Equation Models: Truncated and Censored Models] © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.