High-profile employees at universities and their intentions of commercializing research results

Abstract

When university scientists consider their research results today, an entrepreneurial university wants them to explore more than the options for publication: invention disclosures and patent applications are increasingly becoming of interest as a step into the commercialization process. High-profile employees at universities face both the expectation and the opportunity to follow multiple careers: as scientists but also as drivers of the commercialization process and even as spin-off leaders. Organizational antecedents to such commercialization activities have largely been investigated to help universities design effective incentive systems that stimulate the inventive activity of their employees. However, it remains unclear to which set of incentives high-profile employees respond to. In applying Theory of Planned Behavior, the main contribution of our study is to demonstrate that attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control influence high-profile employee’s intention to disclose an invention as the first step in a commercialization process. More detailed results show which belief factors in turn influence attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control.