The adoption of academic technology transfer practices: an individual level perspective

The study aims to explore what are the determinants and the intensity of the adoption of academic technology transfer practices. Starting from the analysis of the literature we propose a conceptual model to explain which are the determinants of university-industry relations and how they influence such relations. The model is tested on the faculty of the University of Siena active in the area of Life Sciences with specific reference to consulting and patenting activities. The results show how the University can no longer be regarded as a “monolithic” actor, but as an organization in which the adoption and diffusion of an organizational practice are influenced significantly by the individual characteristics of each subject of the organization. It highlights in particular how a certain scientific reputation is associated positively with the number of registered patents and negatively, over a certain threshold, to the number of consultancies carried out. It finally highlights an “imperfect complementarity” between patenting and consultancies. The latter increased in the presence of a patent, but not vice versa. It therefore seems to exist a trade-off between scientific reputation and university-industry relationships. The achievement of a certain level of scientific quality initially favors the provision of consultancy work, but over a certain threshold, the scientist begins to focus on the scientific productivity. Conversely, with regard to patent, the relationship is positive and the scientific excellence in some way facilitates the transfer of the scientific results in an exploitable asset (the patent).