Working Paper: NBER ID: w7256
Authors: Donald Siegel; David Waldman; Albert Link
Abstract: We present quantitative and qualitative evidence (field research) on university technology transfer offices (TTOs). These offices negotiate licensing agreements with firms to commercialize university-based technologies. A stochastic frontier production function framework is used to assess the relative productivity of 113 university TTOs. Our field research provided a useful reality check on the specification of the econometric model. The empirical findings imply that licensing activity is characterized by constant returns to scale. Environmental and institutional factors appear to explain some of the variation in TTO efficiency. Relative productivity may also depend on organizational practices in university management of intellectual property, which potentially attenuate palpable differences in the motives, incentives, and organizational cultures of the parties to licensing agreements. Unfortunately, there are no existing data on such practices, so we rely on inductive, qualitative methods to identify them. We present detailed information on our use of these methods. This information may be useful to economists who are contemplating fieldwork. Based on 55 interviews of managers/entrepreneurs and administrators at five research universities, we conclude that the most critical organizational factors are likely to be reward systems for faculty, TTO staffing and compensation practices, and actions taken by administrators to extirpate informational and cultural barriers between universities and firms.
Keywords: organizational practices; technology transfer; university productivity
JEL Codes: D23; L31; O31; O32
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| organizational practices in university management of intellectual property (O32) | differences in motives, incentives, and organizational cultures between parties involved in licensing agreements (L24) |
| environmental and institutional factors (O17) | variations in TTO efficiency (F16) |
| organizational practices (L29) | TTO effectiveness (F38) |
| faculty engagement in the invention disclosure process (O36) | TTO effectiveness (F38) |
| inputs (Y20) | outputs in licensing activity within university technology transfer offices (L24) |