Does TTO capability matter in commercializing university technology? Evidence from longitudinal data in South Korea

Abstract

Does technology transfer office (TTO) capability contribute to university technology commercialization? To answer this question, we identify three distinctive capabilities of technology commercialization—academic research capability, applied research capability, and TTO operation capability—using stochastic frontier analysis. Then, we examine the effects of the three capabilities on university technology commercialization performance measured by both the number and value of technology transfers. Using unique longitudinal data from 2009 to 2015 in South Korea, we find that TTO operation capability does not have a significant effect on university technology commercialization performance, while academic and applied research capabilities have significant and positive effects. TTO operation capability has a positive impact on technology commercialization performance only for universities possessing a high level of applied research capability. Our findings imply that in commercializing university technology, applied research capability enables universities to reconcile different institutional logics of academic and commercial research, and thus universities should have a certain level of applied research capability as a threshold to make TTO operation capability effective. This study extends our understanding of how universities have adapted to the proliferation of commercial research and of when TTOs can play a critical role in enhancing technology commercialization performance.