Researchers’ willingness to engage in knowledge and technology transfer activities: an exploration of the underlying motivations

Abstract

Increasingly, universities have become conscious of their important role as centres of knowledge generation and diffusion. Accordingly, they have put in place policies, methods and resources to increase knowledge and technology transfer (KTT) activities. However, succeeding in this endeavour is not that easy. An active involvement of researchers is fundamental. Literature examining researchers’ attitude towards KTT activities is limited, offering a partial view on the subject. This study aims at bringing new light to this issue. First, we identify those factors that influence researchers’ willingness to engage in KTT activities. From a comprehensive literature review, we distinguish between intrinsic motivations, extrinsic motivations and university support and services as critical elements. A scale is developed and validated. Second, the scale is applied to the case of R&D contracts. The sample consists of 249 researchers from one of the biggest Spanish universities. Results suggest that the proposed scale has a good fit, indicating that it can be considered as a good instrument for measuring researchers’ willingness to get involved in KTT activities. Policy implications and directions for future research are provided.