The influence of academic staff's personal and professional characteristics on the decision to cooperate with industry

Abstract

University-industry cooperation is important for economic development, particularly at the regional level. Despite this relevance, there is still a lack of understanding regarding the underlying factors that drive the transfer of knowledge and technology. Therefore, this research aims to identify factors related to academic staff's personal and professional characteristics that influence the decision to cooperate with industry. To attain this objective, we built up a unique dataset of academic staff, based on a survey of the total population of a higher education institution in Portugal. Based on a logistic regression, the results reveal that variables such as gender, age and the school influence academic staff's propensity to cooperate with the business sector. We present theoretical and practical implications for academics, policy-makers and practitioners.

Academic spin‐off creation: barriers and how to overcome them

“…FSO1 and FSO2 recall that the value of the win ubi award promoted by the HIE was the fundamental «launch pad» for the idea of forming the spinoff. In the same way, all the interviewees emphasize the symbiosis between the HEI and the business world, the former looking for contact with industry to apply and commercialize the results of research, taking advantage of learning processes resulting from different forms of interpreting information (Laukkanen, 2003;Metcalfe, 2006) and also (RSO) as an alternative due to the lack of public finance (Franco et al, 2014) and the business world as a source of knowledge, namely through highly qualified human resources (FSO1, FSO2, and FSO3 and DSO1, DSO2, and DSO3), contributing to the dynamics of economic innovation and growth (Gunasekara, 2006;Fromhold-Eisebith and Werker, 2013). The business culture in the HEI's local region greatly limits the HEI's power as a catalyst.…”

“…Without financial resources, HEIs cannot continue their knowledge-generating activities, and therefore public policies have also tried to stimulate the creation of knowledge with a commercial value, as an alternative to public finance. This fact has changed the working behavior of researchers in recent years: to seek for research funding; to look for collaboration with industry given the lack of positions in HEIs and also due to the inherent prestige (Franco et al, 2014). Different university policies, such as the attitude toward surrogate entrepreneurs, preferred methods of technology transfer, equity investments, intellectual property protection, and the development model (e.g., proactive, planned, or spontaneous; Chiesa et al, 2000;Lockett et al, 2003), all of them play a role in contributing to or inhibiting academic spin-off activities (Rothaermel et al, 2007).…”

Research commercialisation and academic performance: A study of doctoral projects in Iran

“…These characteristics play a crucial role in predicting the variables related to academic research (Perkmann et al, 2013;Thune, 2009). Previous studies have reported critical individual characteristics of academics including gender (Boardman & Ponomariov, 2009;Franco, Haase, & Fernandes, 2014;Hale & Regev, 2014), age (Boardman & Ponomariov, 2009;Franco et al, 2014;Perkmann et al, 2013), previous experience (Giuliani, Morrison, Pietrobelli, & Rabellotti, 2010;Jackson & Michelson, 2015;Perkmann et al, 2013), scientific values (Boardman & Ponomariov, 2009;Salimi et al, 2015) and nationality (Boardman & Ponomariov, 2009;Salimi et al, 2015). Giuliani et al (2010) also highlighted the importance of researchers' demographic characteristics, such as gender and age, in describing the propensity of engaging in different types of UIC.…”

An overview of social responsibility dimensions in international business

“…Other studies explore interactions between market and non-market actors (Doh & Lucea, 2013;Franco, Haase, & Fernandes, 2014), the impact of global value chains (GVCs) on economic and social upgrading processes (Omoteso & Yusuf, 2017), and the relationship between institutional characteristics and corruption (Lee, Oh, & Eden, 2010).…”