University researchers working with private companies

Abstract

Despite the growing interest in university–industry interactions, there has been little systematic assessment of the university scientists who work with private companies. This study uses a national survey of tenured and tenure-track scientists in the US to identify personal and professional characteristics that affect whether university scientists interact with private companies and, if so, the ways in which they interact. We account for a broad range of professional and personal predictors of scientists’ interactions with the private sector, including funding sources, institutional affiliations, tenure status, support of students, scientific values, and demographic attributes. The motivation for this broad-based analysis is similar to that which has motivated studies of the “entrepreneurial university” demonstrating how a slew of factors including unique histories, traditions, and organizational structures shape universities’ approaches to knowledge exchanges and technology transfers with industry [Bercovitz, J.E.L., Feldman, M.P., Feller, I., Burton, R.M., 2001. Organizational structure as a determinant of academic patent and licensing behavior: an exploratory study of Duke, Johns Hopkins, and Pennsylvania State Universities. Journal of Technology Transfer 26, 21–35; O’Shea, R.P., Allen, T.J., Chevalier, A., Roche, F., 2005. Entrepreneurial orientation, technology transfer and spinoff performance of U.S. universities. Research Policy 34 (7), 994–1009]. Similarly, we start with the premise that there is substantial individual-level variation amongst university scientists that governs whether and how they may interact with private companies.