Determinants of technology transfer success: evidence from New Zealand public research organisations

摘要

Technology transfer (TT) from public research organisations (PROs) is increasingly recognised as a key mechanism to facilitate economic impacts. Given its economic relevance, scholars are increasingly trying to understand TT success and its determinants. However, TT success is not well defined, and the literature on determinants remains fragmented. We investigate the goals and determinants of TT across research institutes (RIs) and universities within the New Zealand (NZ) ecosystem from the perspective of senior TT professionals who facilitate processes at the intersection between government, university, and industry sectors. We adopt a qualitative, inductive case approach, using semi-structured interviews to collect data from 11 senior TT professionals across five RIs and six universities. Our findings indicate that TT success goals and determinants are largely shared across the two types of PROs, with some contextual differences emergent. TT success is defined temporally by short-and long-term goals, with PROs emphasising longer-term outcomes over short-term outputs and returns. Determinants for TT success fall under two dimensions: managing internal resources and acquiring external resources, with determinants spanning individual, organisational, and system levels. Finally, we combine the findings to form a model which provides an empirical framework for future studies.