Commercialization of Technological Innovations: The Effects of Internal Entrepreneurs and Managerial and Cultural Factors on Public–Private Inter-Organizational Cooperation

Abstract

Why do scientists and engineers in government laboratories and private companies cooperate and exchange and commercialize technology? What are the factors that impact the propensity to commercialize and the success of such collaborations? These research questions were explored in the extant literature, but the focus has mainly been on the impacts of incentives that employees of public technology laboratories received from their management. This paper reports the findings from a study of 43 government laboratories and 51 industrial companies in the United States. The study expanded the focus of previous research by considering the set of managerial, economic, cultural, and organizational factors as well as the impacts of internal entrepreneurship — in both the public laboratories and private industry. The study also contributed to the literature on internal entrepreneurship by expanding and empirically testing the integrative concept of intrapreneurship. The results show that internal entrepreneurship of the scientific and technical workforce in both types of organizations is the most powerful predictor of commercialization and technology transfer in the public–private cooperation. Other factors found to impact the success of the commercialization effort are senior management support and a culture that encourages cooperation across organizational boundaries. This paper contributes to the state of knowledge in that it establishes empirically that the incentives most likely to work to improve cooperation between public and private technology organizations are those that create a supportive environment for internal entrepreneurs within these organizations, rather than a basket of the usual incentives designed to foster a specific behavior. These findings also contribute to the making of technology policy in developed countries as well as in the emerging world, where the need to encourage cooperation between public and private technology enterprise is increasingly recognized as a powerful economic and technological foundation for growth and prosperity.

How Much Am I Selling It for? Approaches and Methods of Patents Valuation in Technology Transfer

“…As patents valuation is the main scope of this paper, it must be understood as a task of establishing the monetary value of a new idea, of a new technology or of a new product to be commercialized for those interested in its economic exploitation in the future (Pitkethly, 1997;Geisler & Turchetti, 2015;Mattila & Lehtimaki, 2016).…”

“…For this reason, the term -commercialization of technology‖ is found in several studies (Siegel et al, 2003;Chapple et al, 2005;Geisler & Turchetti, 2015;Mattila & Lehtimaki, 2016).…”

“…According to Geisler and Turchetti (2015), the main purpose of technology transfer is to generate a commercialization process in which the outcomes from researches play an important role in society. These outcomes are related to introducing a new idea, a technological solution, a product, a service, a process, a policy, an organizational form or a firm to the market (Markmann et al, 2005;Mattila & Lehtimaki, 2016).Consequently, commercialization is related to all universities activities that are involved in achieving a new technology or any finding resulting from academic campus and the attempt to incorporate these results into the market (Geuna & Muscio, 2009).…”

“…Perkmann et al (2013) indicate that one of the universities commercialization goals is to generate intellectual property (invention disclosures and patenting) as well as its commercial exploitation by the creation of spinout companies or the licensing of inventions. It is important to recognize that the university based technology commercialization processes usually include a discovery, assessment for patentability and eventual attempts to transfer and license to the industry (Markmann et al, 2005) However, this process depends on many factors to be successful, which includes, but are not limited to: inducements, engagement, network, policies, culture, resources and barriers (Siegel et al, 2003;Geisler & Turchetti, 2015). Managing the technology transfer for commercial profit is a huge challenge, it can be painful and difficult to achieve (Wright et al, 2004;Ambos et al, 2008).…”

“…Geisler & Turchetti (2015) mentioned that the number of patents jointly authored by the university and industry is a strong indication about the level of technology transfer between the organizations.…”