The spill-over theory reversed: The impact of regional economies on the commercialization of university science

Abstract

The concept of regional technology spill-overs created by university research is one of the most enduring theories within the economic geography and innovation management fields. This article introduces an alternative perspective on academic commercialization, arguing that the quality of a university's regional environment can significantly impact a university's success in commercializing science. Recent research on university technology transfer stresses the importance of personal contacts between academic and industry scientists in driving commercialization. The social structure of the regional economy in which a university is embedded will strongly influence the density of contacts linking university scientists with individuals in industry, and through doing so, impact the density of networks through which university knowledge can be commercialized. Social network analysis is used to examine the quality of social ties linking industry and university scientists within the San Francisco and Los Angeles California biotechnology industries over the 1980–2005 period. Results support the theory that the existence of strong social networks linking inventors heightens university commercialization output. Despite similar university research endowments, universities in San Francisco have dramatically commercialization outputs than San Francisco, which is correlated with the existence of cohesive inventor networks linking industry and university scientists in this region, but not Los Angeles. Moreover, longitudinal analysis shows that the commercialization output of San Francisco universities increased substantially starting in the early 1990s, the time period in which cohesive inventor networks emerged in the region.