Discovery sells, but who’s buying? An empirical investigation of entrepreneurs’ technology license decisions

Austin R. Brown, Matthew S. Wood and David J. Scheaf

Journal of Business Research, 2022, vol. 144, issue C, 403-415

Abstract: Despite the fundamental role entrepreneurs play in the commercialization of university technology, very little research has focused on their decisions to license. In this study, we conceptualize entrepreneurs’ decisions to license a university technology as a matter of opportunity evaluation and theorize key opportunity attributes entrepreneurs evaluate in deciding whether to pursue or forgo license opportunities. We conduct a conjoint analysis experiment to test our model. Data from 784 decisions made by 98 entrepreneurs revealed that their considerations of prototype maturity, market segment clarity, and regulatory hurdles significantly influence the likelihood of licensing university technology. We further document that technology specific knowledge and active search for a technology license opportunity are key individual difference variables that moderate the effects of some technology attributes. A key finding is that regulatory hurdles, an attribute mostly ignored in prior university technology commercialization research, are instrumental in entrepreneurs’ evaluations.

Keywords: Technology transfer; University technology; Commercialization; Technology licensing; Opportunity evaluation; Research valorization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296322001370
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:144:y:2022:i:c:p:403-415

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2022.02.021

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Research is currently edited by A. G. Woodside

More articles in Journal of Business Research from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().