The role of justice perceptions in formal and informal university technology transfer.

Abstract

We extend organizational justice theory by investigating the justice perceptions of academic entrepreneurs regarding interactions with their universities. We assess how these justice perceptions influence the propensity of academic entrepreneurs to engage in different forms of commercialization, as well as the moderating role of entrepreneurial identity and prosocial motivation. We test our predictions using data from 1,329 academic entrepreneurs at 25 major U.S. research universities. Our results indicate that organizational justice is positively associated with intentions to engage in formal (i.e., sanctioned) technology transfer, and negatively associated with intentions to engage in informal (unsanctioned and noncompliant) technology transfer, which we characterize as a form of organizational deviance. Our findings also show that entrepreneurial identity and prosocial motivation (i.e., a focus on oneself vs. others) amplify and attenuate, respectively, the relationship between justice perceptions and technology transfer intentions. Finally, although intentions to engage in formal technology transfer predict subsequent behavior, intentions to engage in informal technology transfer do not.

Shaping the social orientation of academic entrepreneurship: an exploratory study

“…This paper outlined how universities can contribute to creating non-commercial forms of AE, answering other calls from the scientific literature (Neves and Brito, 2020;Siegel and Wright, 2015;Waldman et al, 2021;Choi et al, 2022). This study offers novel theoretical insights and practical implications regarding the role of human capital in shaping the social orientation of AE.…”

“…This paper outlined how universities can contribute to creating non-commercial forms of AE, answering other calls from the scientific literature (Neves and Brito, 2020; Siegel and Wright, 2015; Waldman et al. , 2021; Choi et al.…”

“…, 2016). Among the studies that stand out at the institutional level are those investigating the determinants of technology transfer activities (Guerrero and Urbano, 2019; Waldman et al. , 2021), the role of triple helix agents (university, industry and government) in the economic development of regions (Etzkowitz and Zhou, 2021), determinants of spin-off creation (Jones-Evans, 1998) and university-industry collaboration (Fischer et al.…”

“…Universities have been the focus of scientific studies from several perspectives since they produce knowledge and innovations that contribute to economic growth (Guerrero et al, 2016). Among the studies that stand out at the institutional level are those investigating the determinants of technology transfer activities (Guerrero and Urbano, 2019;Waldman et al, 2021), the role of triple helix agents (university, industry and government) in the economic development of regions (Etzkowitz and Zhou, 2021), determinants of spin-off creation (Jones-Evans, 1998) and university-industry collaboration (Fischer et al, 2018). At the individual level, the studies that stand out predominantly are those that investigate the structural determinants of the entrepreneurial intention of students, researchers and principal investigators involved in the creation of spin-off companies (Autio et al, 2001;Neves and Brito, 2020), university-industry collaborations (Shichijo et al, 2015;Wright et al, 2012) and knowledge transfer activities (Dalmarco et al, 2018;Meng et al, 2019).…”

Two Cheers for RRBM, Pasteur’s Quadrant, and an Application of RRBM to the Commercialization of Science and Technology Transfer

“…Unfortunately, with few exceptions (Balven et al, 2018; Waldman et al, 2021), there is a dearth of theoretical and empirical evidence regarding individual‐level organizational and psychological factors influencing the commercialization of science. Understanding individual‐level organizational and psychological issues has important public policy implications.…”