Late-stage academic entrepreneurship: Explaining why academic scientists collaborate with industry to commercialize their patents

Abstract

• Academic entrepreneurs are more likely to work with companies on post-patent commercial development if they are able to recognize the patentability of the underlying research during the early stage of research process. • Academic entrepreneurs who perceive a higher level of compatibility between research commercialization and the conduct of science will be more likely to engage in post-patent commercial development. • Ties with industry increases the likelihood that academic entrepreneurs’ willing to engage in research commercialization. • Academic entrepreneurs will be more likely to engage in post-patent commercial development when they perceive greater levels of commercial significance of the underlying patent. • Higher reliance of a patent on scientific literature may imply a lower likelihood that the commercialization of underlying technology would be successful, thereby reducing academic inventors’ interests in pursuing commercial development. This study expands the scope of research on academic entrepreneurship to include academic inventors who actively engage in late-stage commercialization. It investigates post-patent involvement of academic scientists in the development of products based on their patented inventions. Using data from a 2010 national survey of 798 academic inventors listed on patents assigned to universities in 2006, our analysis shows that only 27% of the inventors were working with a company to further develop their invention for commercial use. Additionally, academic inventors who reported stronger entrepreneurial orientation, higher commercial significance of the patent, lower reliance of the patent on scientific literature, and stronger entrepreneurial disposition of their university were more likely to engage in post-patent commercial development. Our work contributes to the literature on the entrepreneurial behavior of academic scientists by further exploring a critical but relatively understudied post-invention stage of commercialization.