Skip to main content
Log in

Academic Capitalism and University Incentives for Faculty Entrepreneurship

  • Published:
The Journal of Technology Transfer Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Entrepreneurial behavior by professors—including decisions about collaboration with industry, patenting and spinning off companies—can affect the productivity of top universities’ technology transfer efforts. Interviews with 98 professors at 12 southeastern universities showed that the most significant influence on these aspects of entrepreneurial behavior is the beliefs of professors about the proper role of universities in the dissemination of knowledge. Some institutional policies, notably revenue splits with inventors, can affect aspects of this behavior. These findings suggest that both university incentive policies and ethical concerns about academic capitalism, by limiting the productivity of technology transfer efforts, have an effect on regional economic development.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • A. Agrawal R. Henderson (2002) ArticleTitle‘Putting Patents in Context: Exploring Knowledge Transfer from MIT’ Management Science 48 IssueID1 44–60 Occurrence Handle10.1287/mnsc.48.1.44.14279

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • D. Alpert (1985) ArticleTitle‘Performance and Paralysis: The Organizational Context of the American Research University’ Journal of Higher Education 56 IssueID3 241–281

    Google Scholar 

  • J.E.L. Bercovitz M.P. Feldman I. Feller R.M. Burton (2001) ArticleTitle‘Organizational Structure as a Determinant of Academic Patent and License Behavior: An Explanatory Study of Duke, Johns Hopkins and Pennsylvania State Universities’ Journal of Technology Transfer 26 21–35 Occurrence Handle10.1023/A:1007828026904

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • B.R. Clark (1987) The Academic Life: Small Worlds, Different Worlds The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Princeton, NJ

    Google Scholar 

  • J.R. Cole S. Cole (1973) Social Stratification in Science University of Chicago Press Chicago, IL

    Google Scholar 

  • K.S. Dueker (1997) ArticleTitle‘Biobusiness on Campus: Commercialization of University-Developed Biomedical Technologies,’ Food and Drug Law Journal 52 453–509

    Google Scholar 

  • H. Etzkowitz (1983) ArticleTitle‘Entrepreneurial Scientists and Entrepreneurial Universities in American Academic Science’ Minerva 21 IssueID2–3 198–233

    Google Scholar 

  • H. Etzkowitz A. Webster P. Healy (1998) Capitalizing Knowledge: New Intersections of Industry and Academia State University of New York Press Albany, NY

    Google Scholar 

  • M.P. Feldman I. Feller J.E.L. Bercovitz R.M. Burton (2001) ‘Understanding Evolving University–Industry Relationships’ M.P. Feldman A. Link (Eds) Innovation Policy in the Knowledge-Based Economy Kluwer Academic Publishers Boston, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • I. Feller (1997) ‘Technology Transfer from Universities,’ J.C. Smart (Eds) Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research NumberInSeriesVolume XII Agathon Press New York

    Google Scholar 

  • W.B. Gartner (1988) ArticleTitle‘Who Is An Entrepreneur? Is the Wrong Question’ American Journal of Small Business 12 IssueID4 11–32

    Google Scholar 

  • R.L. Geiger (1986) To Advance Knowledge: The Growth of American Research Universities 1900–1940 Oxford University Press New York

    Google Scholar 

  • H.A. Goldstein M.I. Luger (1997) ‘Assisting Economic and Business Development’ M.W. Peterson D. Dill L. Mets (Eds) Planning and Management for a Changing Environment Jossey Bass Publishers San Francisco

    Google Scholar 

  • E.J. Hackett (1990) ArticleTitle‘Science as a Vocation in the 1990s: The Changing Organizational Culture of Academic Science’ Journal of Higher Education 61 IssueID3 241–279

    Google Scholar 

  • R. Henderson A.B. Jaffe M. Trajtenberg (1998) ArticleTitle‘Universities as a Source of Commercial Technology: A Detailed Analysis of University Patenting, 1965–1988’ Review of Economics and Statistics 80 IssueID1 119–127 Occurrence Handle10.1162/003465398557221

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • R.A. Jenson J.C. Thursby M.C. Thursby (2003) ArticleTitle‘Disclosure and Licensing of University Inventions: The Best We Can Do with the S**t We Get To Work With’ International Journal of Industrial Organization 21 IssueID9 1271–1300

    Google Scholar 

  • M. Kenney (1986) Biotechnology: The University–Industrial Complex Yale University Press New Haven, CT

    Google Scholar 

  • J.P. Liebeskind (2001) ArticleTitle‘Risky Business: Universities and Intellectual Property’ Academe 87 IssueID5 49–54

    Google Scholar 

  • J.V. Lombardi D.D. Craig E.D. Capaldi D.S. Gater (2002) The Top American Research Universities The Lombardi Program on Measuring University Performance, University of Florida Gainesville, FL

    Google Scholar 

  • R.S. Lowen (1991) ArticleTitle‘Transforming the University: Administrators, Physicists, and Industrial and Federal Patronage at Stanford, 1935–49’ History of Education Quarterly 31 IssueID3 365–388

    Google Scholar 

  • R.K. Merton (1973) The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations University of Chicago Press Chicago

    Google Scholar 

  • D.C. Mowery N. Rosenberg (1998) Paths of Innovation Cambridge University Press Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • D.C. Mowery S.N. Sampart A. Ziedonis (2002) ArticleTitle‘Learning to Patent: Institutional Experience, Learning and the Characteristic of US University Patents after the Bayh-Dole Act, 1981–1992’ Management Science 48 IssueID1 73–89

    Google Scholar 

  • InstitutionalAuthorNameNational Research Council (1995) Research-doctoral Programs in the United States Continuity and Change Washington, D.C

    Google Scholar 

  • InstitutionalAuthorNameNational Science Board (2000) Science and Engineering Indicators-2000 National Science Foundation Arlington, VA

    Google Scholar 

  • J. Owen-Smith W.W. Powell (2001a) ‘Careers and Contradictions: Faculty Responses to the Transformation of Knowledge and its Uses in the Life Sciences’ S.P. Valias (Eds) The Transformation of Work JAI Amsterdam, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • J. Owen-Smith W.W. Powell (2001b) ArticleTitle‘To Patent or Not: Faculty Decisions and Institutional Success at Technology Transfer’ Journal of Technology Transfer 26 99–114 Occurrence Handle10.1023/A:1007892413701

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • G. Pisano S. Weijian D.J. Teece (1988) ‘Joint Ventures and Collaboration in the Biotechnology Industry’ D.C. Mowery (Eds) International Collaborative Ventures in U.S Manufacturing Ballinger Publishing Co. Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Reynolds, P., 1994, ‘Reducing Barriers to Understanding New Firm Gestation: Prevalence and Success of Nascent Entrepreneurs,’ Unpublished paper, presented at the meeting of the Academy of Management, Dallas, TX.

  • D. Siegel D. Waldman A. Link (2003) ArticleTitle‘Assessing the Impact of Organizational Practices on the Relative Productivity of University Technology Transfer Offices: An Exploratory Study’ Research Policy 32 27–48 Occurrence Handle10.1016/S0048-7333(01)00196-2

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • S. Slaughter L.L. Leslie (1997) Academic Capitalism: Politics, Policies and the Entrepreneurial University The Johns Hopkins University Press Baltimore, MD

    Google Scholar 

  • U.S. Congress, O. o. T.A., 1984, Commercial Biotechnology, New York: Pergamon Press.

  • L.G. Zucker M. Darby J. Armstrong (1998a) ArticleTitle‘Geographically Localized Knowledge: Spillovers or Markets?’ Economic Inquiry 36 IssueID1 65–86

    Google Scholar 

  • L.G. Zucker M. Darby M.B. Brewer (1998b) ArticleTitle‘Intellectual Human Capital and the Birth of U.S. Biotechnology’ American Economic Review 88 IssueID1 290–306

    Google Scholar 

  • L.G. Zucker M. Darby J. Armstrong (1999) Intellectual Capital and the Firm: The Technology of Geographically Localized Knowledge Spillovers National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • L.G. Zucker M. Darby J. Armstrong (2001) Commercializing Knowledge: University Science, Knowledge Capture and Firm Performance in Biotechnology National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Catherine Searle Renault.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Renault, C.S. Academic Capitalism and University Incentives for Faculty Entrepreneurship. J Technol Transfer 31, 227–239 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10961-005-6108-x

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10961-005-6108-x

Keywords

JEL Classification

Navigation