‘Repeat commercializers,’ the ‘habitual entrepreneurs’ of university–industry technology transfer

ARTICLE IN PRESS Technovation 29 (2009) 682–689

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Technovation journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/technovation

‘Repeat commercializers,’ the ‘habitual entrepreneurs’ of university–industry technology transfer Kate Hoye a, Fred Pries b, a b

Department of Philosophy, University of Ottawa, Canada Department of Business, University of Guelph, Canada

a r t i c l e in f o

Keywords: Technology transfer Commercialization University research Entrepreneurship

a b s t r a c t Among academic faculty, is there a class of ‘repeat commercializers’ who account for a disproportionate share of commercialized technologies arising from university research? In a survey of 172 engineering, mathematics, and science faculty members from a major Canadian university, we found evidence that a class of repeat commercializers does exist. Further, we found that the 12% of the faculty who are repeat commercializers account for 80% of the commercialized innovations. Interviews with repeat commercializers in the same faculties at the same university suggest that repeat commercializers parallel habitual entrepreneurs in that they have the ability to commercialize (i.e. the ability to generate and identify commercializable inventions and the ability to acquire resources for the commercialization of their inventions) and the aspiration to do so (i.e. commercialization-friendly attitudes). Since repeat commercializers account for such a large percentage of commercialization activity, it is important that programs and policies associated with technology transfer address the needs of this subpopulation of the faculty. & 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction There has been significant interest in university–industry technology transfer in recent years from policy makers (Industry Canada, 2007; Lambert, 2003; OECD, 2003) and business (Chesbrough, 2003). This interest has been reflected in a growing academic literature (see Rothaermel et al., 2007, for a recent summary of this literature); however, much of this academic research is focused at the environmental and institutional levels (Link et al., 2007; Rothaermel et al., 2007). While environmental and institutional factors are clearly important to university–industry technology transfer, research at the individual level is also important and relatively understudied (Allen et al., 2007; AzagraCaro, 2007). University–industry technology transfer is often highly dependent on the individual efforts of scientists since much of the knowledge about these early stage technologies is often tacit (Shane, 2004). Studies at the individual level tend to assume that researchers are commercializing for the first time (Mosey and Wright, 2007). Very few studies have considered the impact of previous commercialization experience. Those few studies suggest that there is likely to be value in further investigating repeat commercializers to discover if there is a positive relationship between an inventor’s prior entrepreneurial

 Corresponding author.

E-mail address: [email protected] (F. Pries). 0166-4972/$ - see front matter & 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.technovation.2009.05.008

experience and commercialization predictors and outcomes (O’Shea et al., 2005; Shane and Khurana, 2003; Mosey and Wright, 2007). This study seeks to contribute to this emerging body of research by addressing two questions: Is there a class of ‘repeat commercializers’ who account for a disproportionate share of commercialized technologies arising from university research? If so, what characteristics describe these repeat commercializers and how do these characteristics support their commercialization activities? This work is motivated by recent studies that have investigated habitual entrepreneurs. Habitual entrepreneurs are those entrepreneurs who have been involved with more than one independent business (MacMillan, 1986). They include people who have disposed of an equity stake in one business and moved on to another (serial entrepreneurs) and people who have stakes in multiple businesses concurrently (portfolio entrepreneurs) (Westhead et al., 2005). Entrepreneurship researchers have identified habitual entrepreneurs as an important subgroup of entrepreneurs and have suggested that it may be appropriate to provide special policy support and assistance to meet the unique needs and capabilities of this group (Westhead et al., 2005). This research investigates the existence of a similar population in the context of the commercialization of university research. For the purpose of the study, ‘repeat commercializers’ are defined to be faculty members who have commercialized multiple inventions, where ‘commercialization’ can involve the creation of new

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firms as well as licensing to established firms, following Rasmussen et al. (2006). The definition of repeat commercializers is parallel to that of habitual entrepreneurship in that it includes inventors who engaged in commercialization projects in serial or in parallel, but it is also more inclusive. This study includes multiple forms of commercialization because the extent of an individual researcher’s role in a specific commercialization project can vary a great deal (Hoye et al., 2006). It may well be the case that a central role in arranging a licence could exceed the workload implied by a peripheral role in a spin-off, despite the fact that the creation of a new firm is a more taxing process than licensing a technology, thus, licensing should not be omitted from study of faculty engagement with technology transfer. The research paper is structured as follows. Section 2 provides a review of the literature. Sections 3 and 4 describe two studies that investigate the existence of repeat commercializers and seek to identify their characteristics. Study 1 gathers and analyzes quantitative evidence about whether there is a subgroup of repeat commercializers. Study 2 is an interview study that suggests several characteristics of repeat commercializers. The final section discusses the limitations of the research, its managerial and research implications, and provides conclusions.

2. Literature review 2.1. Habitual entrepreneurship Previous studies have consistently found that habitual entrepreneurs represent an important subgroup among entrepreneurs (Rerup, 2005; Westhead et al., 2005). More specifically, researchers have found differences between novice and habitual entrepreneurs in background, motivation and business capabilities (Westhead et al., 2005). The businesses of habitual entrepreneurs were also larger and more profitable than those of novice entrepreneurs (Westhead et al., 2005). Hyytinen and Ilmakunnas (2007) suggest that habitual entrepreneurship results from individuals who have previous entrepreneurial experience having greater aspirations to start another firm and having greater ability to do so based on the knowledge and skills gained from their previous experience. Prior experience with entrepreneurship can help individuals develop their skills for identifying and exploiting opportunities (Shane, 2000; Shane and Venkataraman, 2000), provide individuals with knowledge about demand conditions in the industry and how to develop and finance new organizations (Shane, 2003), and helps integrate individuals into networks of suppliers and customers (Campbell, 1992). Taken together, this research suggests that there are benefits to entrepreneurs from prior experience in entrepreneurial activities, that habitual entrepreneurs are common and that these habitual entrepreneurs differ in numerous ways from novice entrepreneurs. We now turn to academic faculty and the commercialization of inventions arising from their research. 2.2. Role of faculty inventors in technology transfer Studies suggest that faculty inventors have a critical role in the identification of commercializable technologies and disclosure of these technologies to university technology transfer offices (‘‘TTOs’’). Most TTOs rely on researchers to identify commercializable inventions and, in many cases, technology transfers will not proceed if the researchers do not want to pursue the commercialization of their inventions (Jansen and Dillon, 1999; Siegel et al., 2003; Stevens and Bagby, 1999). Researchers’ unwillingness to

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disclose inventions to their TTO is a major obstacle to university– industry technology transfer. Faculty inventors also have an important role in the subsequent transfer of the technology. A number of empirical surveys have established that the personal contacts of faculty inventors are an important and, at some institutions, the primary source of marketing leads in the licensing of university inventions (Jansen and Dillon, 1999; Ramakrishnan et al., 2005; Thursby et al., 2001). Siegel et al. (2003) observed that faculty are important not only in terms of the disclosure of potentially commercializable technologies, but also the marketing of the technology because ‘‘they are usually in a good position to identify potential licensees and because their technical expertise often makes them a natural partner for firms that wish to commercialize the technology.’’ Spin-offs are not immune from this trend; a UK study demonstrated that the faculty inventor’s enthusiasm was a requirement for spin-off success (Blair and Hitchens, 1998). Shane (2004) provides an explanation from Lita Nelson, the director of MIT’s TTO: ‘‘We start companies when professors want to start companies. That doesn’t mean the person has to leave MIT, but they have to be enthusiastic about the process, helping to raise the money, that kind of thing. If they’re not, then forget it.’’ Three studies have provided evidence that inventors have a significant role in the subsequent development of university technologies. In Thursby et al.’s (2001) survey of technology managers, TTO staff indicated that the commercialization of 71% of licensed inventions required inventor cooperation. Agrawal (2006) demonstrated, using a dataset of 124 licence agreements associated with inventions from MIT, that licensing strategies that directly engaged the inventor in the commercialization process increased the likelihood and degree of commercialization success. A survey of Canadian and American technology managers, by Hoye et al. (2006), suggested that some level of faculty inventor involvement in a wide range of technology transfer activities generally has a positive effect on the probability of achieving a successful transfer of the technology. The technology transfer activities assessed in the survey included invention disclosure, evaluation of the invention, marketing, prototype development and licensing or spin-off formation. The faculty inventor’s role in the commercialization of university knowledge is not without limitations. There are concerns that faculty inventors can lack requisite skills, experience and resources to engage in commercialization, especially spin-off creation. Meyer (2003) reviewed four case histories of spin-offs led by faculty inventors and observed that some founders were seeking avenues with which to develop their research, rather than seeking to build a high-growth, hightechnology firm. Bower (2003) observes: ‘‘It is a difficult challenge for academic founders with little prior market knowledge and linkages, and no previous experience of professional investors and their requirements, to select the applications and business models which will support successful venture creation.’’ This is consistent with Otto’s (1999) suggestion that researchers tend to focus on their product and its underlying technology rather than customer benefits, market needs and opportunities. These researchers will require support from a TTO, for example, if their inventions are to be commercialized. This research establishes the importance of faculty support for the identification of commercializable inventions, the transfer of technology to industry and subsequent development of the technology. Since faculty inventors have an important role in the commercialization of university research, there is considerable interest in providing effective incentives in support of this behaviour. There are also concerns that faculty inventors lack the skills and resources to effectively and efficiently commercialize the products of university research, and therefore there is also

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interest in supporting commercialization activities through the provision of appropriate programs and resources (e.g. through the TTOs). The design of effective incentives and support programs could be enhanced by developing a greater understanding of the professoriate and their relationships to technology transfer. 2.3. Repeat commercializers Very little research exists concerning repeat commercializers but those few studies suggest that they may be a critically important subgroup of the professoriate. In a study of inventors at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, Wallmark (1997) demonstrates that a subgroup of prolific inventors exists as measured by number of patents. This study is limited by the selection of the dependent variable because the existence of patents does not necessarily mean that the patented technologies were commercialized; however, it does suggest the existence of a group of highly prolific commercializers. Entrepreneurship researchers have suggested that repeat commercializers are likely to exist and their reasoning parallels that used to explain the existence of habitual entrepreneurs. Phan and Siegel (2006) argued that previous commercialization experience can help university faculty inventors to identify commercial opportunities. Shane (2004) observed that previous commercialization experience may allow university faculty inventors to build knowledge about evaluating opportunities and starting up a new business, and to access a network of suppliers, investors and customers that may be helpful in future commercialization activities. Overall, this research suggests that there is ample reason to seek to determine if there are repeat commercializers, and those qualities that characterize them.

3. Study 1: quantitative survey of commercialization activity 3.1. Methods The purpose of this study is to gather evidence about whether there is a subgroup of repeat commercializers. Repeat commercializers are defined for this purpose as faculty members who have invented more than one new technology that has been put into commercial use. The study employs quantitative data gathered from a survey of faculty members from the engineering, mathematics and science faculties of a major Canadian university. Engineering and science faculties have generally been found to be significant sources of commercialized inventions (Thursby et al., 2001). The mathematics faculty was also included because it is known to have produced numerous computer science innovations (e.g. cryptographic and search methods), a number of which have been commercialized through licences and software spin-offs. A total of 322 faculty members were identified in the three faculties. Contact was made with 177 faculty members. Five responses were unusable leaving 172 usable responses for an overall response rate of 52.4%. Each faculty member that was contacted was asked: (a) ‘how many innovations resulting from your academic research have been put into commercial use?’ and (b) ‘how many years have you been actively involved in academic research?’ In two cases, faculty members indicated the number of inventions commercialized was ‘many.’ In all other cases, a specific number was given. In five cases, the respondents did not provide information about the number of years they were involved in academic research. In each of these cases, we were able to estimate this number using information contained in faculty profiles available on the World Wide Web.

3.2. Results Respondents were primarily from the engineering (42%) and science (42%) faculties with a smaller proportion from the mathematics faculty (16%). On average, the respondents have been involved in academic research for 19.2 years and have had 0.4 inventions resulting from their research put into commercial use though there is significant variability in both statistics. Table 1 contains summarized information about the faculty affiliation, experience and number of commercialized technologies of survey participants. In order to determine whether there is a group of repeat commercializers who are involved in commercialization activities on a disproportionate basis, we compare the actual pattern of commercialization activity with two models of commercialization activity that assume that individual faculty members are equally likely to be involved in commercialization activity. The Poisson distribution can be used to model the distribution of random events across a specified domain (Feller, 1968), in this case a group of faculty members. Model 1 uses the Poisson distribution to model the number of faculty who would have commercialized the observed number of inventions and assumes that commercialized inventions are randomly distributed among the population of faculty members. Specifically, the expected number of faculty members who have commercialized k inventions is calculated as follows: EðkÞ ¼ N el

lk

(1)

k!

where E(k) is the expected number of faculty members who have commercialized k inventions; N is the number of faculty members in population (172); k is the number of commercialized inventions; l is the observed ratio of inventions to faculty members (a total of 71 inventions were reported commercialized by the 170 respondents who provided a numerical value for the number of inventions commercialized for a ratio of 0.42 inventions per faculty member). A weakness of Model 1 is that some faculty members have been involved in academic research for significant periods while others have been involved in research for only a short period of time and, accordingly, the more experienced researchers may be more likely to have commercialized multiple inventions. Model 2 also uses the Poisson distribution but accounts for the differing number of years of experience of faculty members. Specifically, the expected number of faculty members who have commercialized k inventions taking into account the number of years experience of the faculty members is calculated as follows: EðkÞ ¼

N X

yi el

i¼1

lk

(2)

k!

where E(k) is the expected number of faculty members who have commercialized k inventions taking into account their individual experience in research; N is the number of faculty members in Table 1 Faculty affiliation, experience and number of commercialized inventions of survey participants. Characteristic Faculty affiliation Engineering Science Mathematics Number of years actively involved in academic research Number of inventions put into commercial use

n

%

72 72 28

42 42 16

Mean

s.d.

19.2 0.4

9.4 1.2

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population (172); yi is the number of years of research experience for faculty member i; k is the number of commercialized inventions; l is the observed ratio of inventions to total faculty member experience (a total of 71 inventions were reported commercialized by researchers with a total of 3218 years of research experience for a ratio of 0.022 inventions per faculty member year of experience). Table 2 contains information about the actual number of faculty members who have commercialized particular numbers of inventions along with the number of faculty members in each category predicted by Models 1 and 2. The observed distribution of commercialized inventions per faculty members has more faculty members with no commercialized inventions and with many commercialized inventions (i.e., extreme values) than predicted by Models 1 and 2. The observed distribution has fewer faculty members with moderate numbers of commercialized invention than predicted by Models 1 and 2. The fit of Models 1 and 2 to the observed data is extremely poor as judged by the w2 criterion (po0.001 in both cases). These results do not support the premise that commercialized inventions are distributed randomly among faculty members. Rather, the results suggest that academic faculty are not equally likely to commercialize new technologies arising from their research. Looking specifically at the question of whether repeat commercializers exist in proportions greater than can be attributed to chance alone, we compared the observed and expected number of repeat commercializers, those who had commercialized two or more inventions, with the number of non-repeat commercializers, those who had commercialized zero or one invention. Twenty (12%) of the respondents met the definition of repeat commercializers. Table 3 contains information about the observed and expected number of repeat commercializers. The observed number of repeat commercializers is significantly more than the numbers predicted by Models 1 and 2. The w2 test for the 2  2 contingency table comparing the observed results with Model 1 is statistically significant (po0.01). The w2 test for the 2  2 contingency table comparing the observed results with Model 2 is also statistically significant (po0.05). These results Table 2 Number of faculty members with specific numbers of commercialized innovations. Number of commercialized innovations

Observed

Predicted Model 1

Model 2

0 1 2 3 4 44

138 14 8 6 2 4

113.28 47.31 9.88 1.38 0.14 0.01

115.09 43.93 10.61 2.00 0.32 0.05

Total

172

172.00

172.00

Observed Predicted Model Model 1 2

Non-repeat commercializers (none or one 152 commercialized innovation) Repeat commercializers (two or more commercialized 20 innovations)

160.59 159.02

Total

172.00 172.00

172

11.41

provide evidence that there is a group of faculty members (repeat commercializers) who are involved in commercializing inventions arising from their research at a greater rate than are their colleagues. The survey respondents reported commercializing a total of 71 inventions. Of these, the repeat commercializers reported commercializing a total of 57 inventions. Thus, in this sample, the 12% of faculty members who are identified as repeat commercializers account for 80% of the commercialized inventions. This finding demonstrates the importance of repeat commercializers to the overall commercialization of inventions arising from university research.

4. Study 2: interview study with faculty members 4.1. Methods The interview study explored the experiences of repeat commercializers and suggests characteristics for investigation in future research. This study also investigated how the identified characteristics helped the individuals in their commercialization activities. Six repeat commercializers were interviewed. The participants are affiliated with the engineering, mathematics and science faculties of the same university that was investigated in Study 1. The participants were restricted to the cohort that introduced technology transfer to the university, which consisted of senior and retired faculty members with an average age of 69 and having been professors for 28 years, on average. As a result of the gender imbalance among senior and retired professors in the technical disciplines (Sussman and Yssaad, 2005), the participants within this study were all male. In accordance with Seidman’s (1998) guidelines for in-depth interviewing, the data collection consisted in taping and transcribing a series of three interviews with each participant, usually spaced about a week apart, and lasting between 45 and 90 min each. The successive interviews addressed general life history, details of the participant’s experiences in technology transfer and offered the participant an opportunity to reflect on his experiences (Seidman, 1998). The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using variable-oriented cross-case analysis methods, as defined by Miles and Huberman (1994). The analysis identified the commonalities among the repeat commercializers and contrasted them with academic norms as captured in the existing research literature. 4.2. Characteristics of repeat commercializers

Table 3 Observed versus predicted numbers of repeat commercializers. Number of commercialized innovations

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12.98

The repeat commercializers demonstrated commercializationfriendly attitudes, high research productivity, and ‘boundary spanning’ behaviours. They also demonstrated that they learned from prior commercialization attempts and applied that knowledge to their current commercialization attempts. These commonalities are of interest because they offer a tentative explanation for the existence of a prolific class of repeat commercializers. Each of these commonalities will be discussed, in turn, in this section. 4.2.1. Commercialization-friendly attitudes The participants’ statements regarding appropriate research directions and the role of the professor in society suggested that their attitudes are quite positive towards both applied research and technology transfer. For example, a participant argued for the importance of applied research, by commenting, ‘‘Gauss, a great mathematician, started looking at applied astronomy; always

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looking up at the stars. Think about how much we’ve learned about physics because people are interested in astronomy. Applications feed the theory and theory feeds the applications. It seems to me there’s got to be that interaction.’’ Another explained his views on desirable outcomes of research, in the following way. ‘‘It’s no good just having a scientific problem. You solve it and then you publish a paper and that’s great. Now you have to really try and take it to the next step. Is there a way I could modify this technology or develop it a little bit further such that it can solve a specific problem somebody has? And that problem could be a small problem or large problem. Then you adapt it or change it a little bit further to solve another problem, then it starts growing.’’ This result coincides with Renault’s finding that researchers who engage in technology transfer are more likely than their noncommercializing colleagues to hold non-traditional views of academe, in which university–industry involvement is seen as a positive activity (Renault, 2006). This suggests that commercialization-friendly attitudes are likely to be held by repeat commercializers. Furthermore, there may be a relationship between the favorability of the faculty inventor’s attitudes to commercialization and the likelihood of his or her engaging in repeat commercialization. 4.2.2. Highly productive academics The participants were highly productive researchers. The six participants had generated approximately 6.7 peer-reviewed publications per year, on average, over their careers to date. As a group they had generated a total of 29 books and 34 patents. Several participants had their research recognized through prestigious awards. Since the participants believed in the value of applied research, it is likely that this high research productivity translates to a large stock of potentially commercializable research. This inference suggests repeat commercializers are likely to come from among the set of highly productive researchers. This is consistent with recent empirical studies showing that those faculty who are listed as authors of patents have more publications than their non-patenting peers (Azoulay et al., 2007; Fabrizio and di Minin, 2008). The proposed relationship does not imply that all highly productive researchers are repeat commercializers; some highly productive researchers may generate results that are not commercializable due to the nature of their studies, or they may not be willing to seek commercialization of their research. 4.2.3. Interaction with industry Most of the participants can be described as ‘boundaryspanning’ professors because they have displayed a wide range of interactions with industry over a long period of time. The participants’ involvement in university–industry interactions was characterized by a wide range of activities usually beginning many years before formal attempts to transfer technology through licences or spin-offs. These university–industry interactions included: offering seminars, courses and workshops to industry at both on-campus and at firm sites; conducting contract research for industry; consulting with industry; participating in trade conferences and expos attended by industry and/or the users of the technology; doing sabbaticals in industry; participating in committees and professional groups that also include industry; maintaining informal communications with contacts developed through these means; and, maintaining contacts with students and colleagues who have moved into industry. Rahm (1994) has described researchers exhibiting these behaviour patterns as ‘boundary-spanning’ researchers. She has demonstrated that ‘boundary-spanning’ researchers differ from

‘university-bound’ researchers in a number of ways; for example, they are more likely to engage in technology transfer than their ‘university-bound’ colleagues. Her study indicated that boundaryspanning experiences appeared to influence researchers’ research direction, ability to recognize opportunities, and ability to successfully commercialize inventions through the acquisition of business knowledge and contacts. The findings of this interview study affirmed Rahm’s findings. The participants’ involvement in a variety of university–industry interactions appeared to be an important factor in the recognition of research opportunities with potential applications outside academe. Many participants identified these interactions as an important source of interesting problems. The most extreme case of industry involvement in problem selection was the use by one participant of informal and formal groups, which included industry contacts, with whom he would discuss and prioritize research problems. In some cases, applied research projects themselves appeared to increase participants’ awareness of the market; ‘‘during the project, we were also exposed, through conferences and visitors, to people who wanted to use the technology.’’ The participants’ exposure to industry also appeared to be an important factor in their development of commercialization skills; for example, in the recognition of opportunities for technology transfer. In the most direct case, a business person familiar with the industry approached the research group and suggested that they form a venture. In many of the other cases, university researchers appear to have decided that technologies presented opportunities and appeared confident in their abilities to assess market forces. For example, one participant observed, ‘‘We knew, having looked at the market, that there was a need.’’ Another commented, ‘‘The tools that we had developed seemed like the basis of a company or a business plan.’’ A third participant made an explicit link between his interactions with industry and his ability to recognize opportunities: ‘‘[I knew there was a market for the technology because] being a technical person, I go to conferences, I go to trade shows. I can see which way the market is goingyit would be important to this industry because then they can have a faster manufacturing line.’’ Not only did the participants’ involvement in university–industry activities help them recognize opportunities for the commercialization of university inventions, it also appeared to help them pursue the commercialization opportunities. As discussed in the literature review, there are concerns that faculty inventors may lack the requisite knowledge, experience and resources to pursue commercialization opportunities. The participants’ comments suggested that they gained business knowledge, especially insight into markets, and broadened their personal networks beyond academe through their boundaryspanning activities. One participant noted, ‘‘We gave a series of lectures on campus. They were one or two day seminars to which we’d invite local industries. We would talk to them about our technology and what it would do and an overview of the field and they would in turn tell us things that they were doing. We got feedbackyyou have to know what products people want; see what they liked, what they didn’t like. The contacts and the networking are very important.’’ Another focused on the value of consulting and contract research with industry, ‘‘The aspect of my background that made it easier for me to help with the business was my experience giving estimates for research and consulting projects. When you do an estimate on a research project or contract research, it just strikes you that this is a three hundred thousand dollar project. Literally within minutes you kind of make that kind of rough estimate. Then, when you do the detailed pricing, if you’re way off that, you have to ask yourself why. Experience teaches you, I think, that you should have a kind of a

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gut feeling for the scope of the project, not just the work to be done but also what it should be costing.’’ In summary, it appears that faculty inventors’ participation in a broad range of university–industry interactions allows them to develop ability to manage the non-scientific aspects of commercialization. This included identifying research projects with industry significance, building relationships with industry, and recognizing and exploiting commercialization opportunities. 4.2.4. Learning from prior commercialization attempts Study 1 demonstrated that, through repeat commercialization, a small group of faculty inventors account for a majority of commercialized inventions. Study 2 suggests that repeat commercializers may have an advantage over their peers with no commercialization experience to date (i.e. potential novice commercializers). The participants’ remarks suggested that they gained business knowledge applicable to their recent commercialization attempts through earlier commercialization attempts. Examples of these remarks include: ‘‘The way I look at it is that you have to learn from your mistakes and not make the same mistake the second time. I was lucky because I had multiple chances at setting up companies. The first one started, lasted for a couple of years, didn’t do anything and died. I learned from that one that it’s important to choose your partners correctly but nothing much came of that,’’; and ‘‘I think I was a little bit of elitist, at the beginning. That ended up hurting me. I was looking down on understanding the law. Later on, when I was hit hard, then I said, ‘Oh! You have to understand the laws, you have to understand how it works,’ because it can be legal and it can be very unfair. But it was too late, you see? So that was a mistake I made. Now when I enter into agreements with respect to the business, I look at the legal aspect.’’ These business learnings imply that the repeat commercializers are likely to be more successful in their latter commercialization attempts than novice commercializers. In summary, the repeat commercializers identified in this study hold commercialization-friendly attitudes, are high-achievers in a research context, and are highly involved in boundaryspanning activities. Furthermore, they demonstrate that they apply the knowledge gained from earlier commercialization activities to more recent commercialization activities. This suggests that they may be more likely to be successful in repeat commercialization attempts. These findings appear to parallel Hyytinen and Ilmakunnas’s (2007) explanations for habitual entrepreneurship. Like habitual entrepreneurship, repeat commercialization may result because individuals who have previous experience with commercialization have greater aspirations to start another commercialization attempt and have greater ability to do so. In the case of repeat commercializers, the aspiration can be framed as commercialization-positive attitudes. The ability to commercialization from within a university is likely to consist of two parts: the ability to generate commercializable inventions; and, the ability to identify and pursue commercialization opportunities as a result of learning from past experiences with boundary-spanning activities and commercialization.

5. Discussion and conclusions Together, these studies suggest there is a class of ‘repeat commercializers’ who account for a disproportionate share of commercialized technologies arising from university research. The studies also suggest that these repeat commercializers may exist because a subset of the faculty have positive attitudes to commercialization, have access to a large stock of commercializ-

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able inventions, and are able to identify and acquire resources for the commercialization of their inventions. The interview data also suggest that repeat commercializers may have an advantage over novice commercializers because of their ability to apply their knowledge gains from earlier to later commercialization attempts. 5.1. Limitations and future research Study 1 examines faculty members’ commercialization activities up to the point in time when the survey was conducted rather than over their entire careers. Some researchers are early in their careers, some are mid-career and others are towards the end of their research careers. Accordingly, some of the non-repeat commercializers, particularly those early in their research careers, may turn out to be repeat commercializers by the time they finish their career. The anticipated effect of this limitation in the design of the study is to underestimate the number of repeat commercializers. The analysis conducted in Study 2 contrasts the characteristics of repeat commercializers with academic norms as captured by the research literature, thus the results should be considered preliminary findings. The generalizability of the findings should be further investigated by multi-institutional survey work to determine the extent to which the set of characteristics identified in this study are unique to repeat commercializers. Further work should also include longitudinal research to establish that the characteristics identified in this study both precede and are predictors of repeat commercialization, which would provide evidence of a causal relationship. Future research should also investigate the characteristics of repeat commercializers that primarily commercialize through licensing. The repeat commercializers identified in Study 2 were all highly involved in spin-off creation. Therefore, the characteristics identified in Study 2 may not apply to repeat commercializers who exclusively employ licensing to existing firms as commercialization strategies, or to repeat commercializers with low levels of involvement in commercialization attempts. Future research should seek to determine levels of involvement with commercialization efforts and determine if repeat commercializers with low commitment commercialization strategies are a significant subgroup of repeat commercializers. If they exist in significant numbers, it is important that the research compare the characteristics of both high and low commitment repeat commercializers and examine the outcomes of the two strategies. These studies provide evidence that repeat commercializers exist; however, they do not control for the number of inventions made by the researchers. Accordingly, we are unable to determine whether repeat commercialization results from these researchers producing more raw inventions or from their acting more on the inventions they have made. Some evidence suggests that academic entrepreneurs are more productive researchers than their colleagues (Lowe and Gonzalez-Brambila, 2007). But there is also evidence that universities and researchers differ in their ability to take new technologies and transfer them to industry (Anderson et al., 2007; Decter et al., 2007). Further research to determine the relative impact of these two factors will be helpful in understanding why repeat commercializers exist and how universities can encourage greater university–industry technology transfer. 5.2. Research implications Our findings suggest that repeat commercializers are very important contributors to overall commercialization activity and that they may differ significantly from other academic researchers.

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This suggests that there may be differences in the incentives and TTO management practices that best support repeat commercializers. Further research into the characteristics of repeat commercializers and the incentives and TTO management practices that best support repeat commercializers is warranted. Much of the research on the commercialization of new technologies arising from university research focuses on institutional and technology characteristics. Our finding that a small number of individuals account for a large proportion of commercialization activity suggests that research into commercialization should also take account of the personal characteristics of the inventors. Accounting for individual factors will reduce the likelihood that these factors confound investigations of the characteristics of the institution where the researchers reside and of the technology itself. The inclusion of individual factors would also permit the identification of interactions between institutional and technology characteristics and personal characteristics of the inventors. These interactions could affect commercialization and the emergence of repeat commercializers. For example, there may be discipline specific factors such as the availability and effectiveness of patents in various disciplines that are important. There may also be institutional factors such as the mission of the university and its rewards systems that are important. These interacting factors also need further research.

5.3. Managerial implications Our findings are significant because boundary-spanning professors are known to differ significantly from their peers in identifiable ways; by definition, they exhibit a characteristic behaviour pattern. Therefore, this subgroup of the university population could be deliberately targeted in the design of incentive systems and technology transfer support programs. In designing supports valued by repeat commercializers, one would be likely to address much of the commercialization activity within the community. Furthermore, one would be targeting the population that is most likely to have the kind of knowledge of the industry that could contribute to the success of any transfers. Given the limited resources available to most TTOs, targeting of their resources on those researchers most likely to produce marketable inventions could help improve the efficiency and productivity of TTOs. For example, we found that repeat commercializers often have wide ranging interactions with industry that provide them with significant insights into the market opportunities for their inventions and the identity potential commercialization partners. They also have business knowledge acquired in previous commercialization attempts. This suggests that universities and TTOs encourage these repeat commercializers to be actively involved in the commercialization process in order to make use of this knowledge. Bozeman (2000) suggested that inventors make cost–benefit decisions when choosing whether or not to engage in commercialization activities or other activities. Therefore, universities can encourage participation by increasing the benefits of the activity through incentives, and by reducing the costs by facilitating the commercialization process. To ensure that researchers value the incentives offered for support of commercialization, universities are advised to review incentives with known repeat commercializers and other boundary-spanning researchers to investigate the impact of a variety of policies and practices, including intellectual property policies as they pertain to ownership and sharing of university revenue from commercialization activities, and tenure and promotion practices. To ensure that researchers are supported in their commercialization efforts, universities are advised to ensure that their TTO has adequate staffing and resources, to

review their TTO management practices, and to seek repeat commercializer input on the efficacy of leave of absence or sabbatical policies that could facilitate engaging in spin-off creation. At the same time, universities and TTOs that wish to encourage greater commercialization activity at their institutions might do so by encouraging greater interaction between researchers at their institution and industry. These activities could include offering seminars, courses and workshops to industry, conducting contract research and participation in trade conferences. Patience in supporting these activities is required. We found that repeat commercializers became involved in these activities many years before formal attempts at commercialization occurred. 5.4. Conclusion In our studies, we found that a small proportion of academic researchers, ‘repeat commercializers’, accounted for 80% of the commercialization activity at the institution studied. We also found that these repeat commercializers held commercializationfriendly attitudes, were highly productive researchers, were involved in a wide range of interactions with industry over long periods of time and had developed significant business knowledge through earlier commercialization attempts. These findings have significant implications to governments and universities that are looking to promote the commercial use of new technologies and inventions arising from university research.

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