Publish or profit? Essays on university technology commercialization & academic entrepreneurship

Abstract

As universities increasingly engage in technology commercialization, concerns have been raised about the effects of such activities on faculty members¿ research productivity. Conflicting arguments are proposed and the empirical findings are ambiguous. Therefore in my first essay, I investigate the effect of patenting and business venturing on research productivity separately and find that while patenting has a positive effect on publication productivity, further involvement in spinoff activities has a negative effect on publication productivity. In my second essay, I further investigate the psychological factors that influence some faculty inventors¿ intention to start up spinoff firms. There seems to be no testable and integrative intention model in literature which is based on fundamental theory. Drawing upon insights from Regulatory Focus Theory, I propose and test a parsimonious model of entrepreneurial intention in the context of university technology commercialization, and the results show partial support to the model.