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Description
This paper presents empirical evidence of the relationship between faculty entrepreneurial activity--quantified in terms of the propensity of U.S. university faculty to work directly with industry on research activities that lead to patents--and human capital, measured in terms of faculty tenure and age. Patenting reflects a unique dimension of faculty entrepreneurship, namely, collaborative activity that results in joint intellectual property. We find that faculty with tenure are more likely to engage in such activity, thus providing suggestive evidence of an externality associated with permanent employment. We also find that older faculty are more likely to engage with industry, to a point, holding tenure constant. Tenure and age proxy, respectively, what we call the "accumulated advantage" of faculty and their absorptive capacity. Because faculty patenting with industry involved both parties, our findings reflect that such faculty experience and expertise are important to industry to enter into a patenting relationship. Finally, we find that male faculty are more likely to patent with industry than female faculty.
Introduction
Since the enactment of the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980, there has been a rapid increase in commercial knowledge transfers from U.S. universities to firms through such mechanisms as licensing agreements, research joint ventures, and university-based startups. For a history of the Bayh-Dole Act, see, for example, Stevens (2004); for an overview of public policy implications related to Bayh-Dole, see Mowery, Nelson, Sampat, and Ziedonis (2004) and Link (2006). Such transfer activities have been welcomed by universities as a potential source of revenue, as a vehicle to build relationships with external stakeholders, and as a means to enhance regional economic growth and development. A concomitant trend has been a burgeoning literature on the economics, managerial, and policy implications of such university technology transfers.
As Link and Siegel (2007) have argued, scholars who assess university technology transfer have examined institutions that have emerged to facilitate entrepreneurial commercialization, such as university technology transfer offices (TTOs), industry-university cooperative research centers, research/science parks, and incubators (Phan, Siegel, & Wright, 2005). However, certain research questions are better addressed by focusing directly on agents involved in technology commercialization, such as academic scientists and engineers (Vanaelst et al., 2006).
A smaller, yet equally important, literature has also emerged that focuses on the individual-level behavior relating to technology transfer mechanisms. Specifically, as reviewed in Link, Siegel, and Bozeman (forthcoming a), several authors have examined the determinants and outcomes of faculty involvement in university technology transfer, such as their propensity to disclose inventions and establish university-based spin-offs.
Conspicuously absent from the institution and agent technology transfer literature is a systematic and broad-based analysis of the entrepreneurial activity of faculty as measured by their propensity to patent (Link & Siegel, 2007). This paper is an initial descriptive attempt to fill that void. The human capital dimensions of faculty are captured by their tenure status and age. As discussed below, drawing on aspects of human capital theory as related to innovative activity, these dimensions are positively related to the propensity of faculty to patent with industry. They are indicators of academic accomplishment and experience, both of which signal to industry research ability that is transferable to intellectual pursuits.
The Individual Contexts of University Technology Transfer
Several studies have focused on individual scientists and entrepreneurs in the context of university technology transfer, but few have examined the influence of human capital on the propensity to patent (Link & Siegel, 2007). We review below aspects of that focused literature, and this review motivates our subsequent hypotheses and empirical analysis. But, because patenting activity at universities is related to university spin-offs (Shane, 2004; Wright, Birley, & Mosey, 2004), selected key papers that emphasize star scientists or university researchers are also overviewed.
Audretsch (2000) examined the extent to which entrepreneurs at universities are different than other entrepreneurs. He analyzed a dataset on university life scientists in order to estimate the determinants of the probability that they will establish a new biotechnology firm, and he found that university entrepreneurs tend to be older and more scientifically experienced. Audretsch offered no explanation for this finding, although it is consistent with our theory (below) that age approximated the absorptive capacity of faculty.
Whittington and Smith-Doerr (2005) examined gender differences in the patenting productivity of academic scientists. They studied a sample of life science PhDs who had been involved in a university research program that had received a National Institute of General Medical Sciences research service award, and these scientists were matched to the National Bureau of Economic Research Patent Citation Date File. Their analysis suggests that academic females patent less than males but that the commercial value of their patents, measured in terms of citations, is equal to or greater than males.
Wright, Vohora, and Lockett (2004) examine, through case studies of U.K. university spinout formations, the efficacy of joint venture spinout (JVSO) companies. A JVSO is a new venture in which technology is assigned or licensed into a new company that is jointly owned by the university and the industrial partner (p. 307).
... JVSOs may provide a faster, more flexible, less risky and less costly business venturing route to commercializing university intellectual property in comparison to venture backed university start-ups.
In a sense, faculty patenting activity with industry is a form of a joint venture research relationship, and one that may be more efficient than sole academic patenting or sole industry patenting. This is not a point tested empirically in this paper, but rather a topic for future study.
More broadly, Zucker and Darby, and their various collaborators, explored the role of star scientists in the life sciences on the creation and location of new biotechnology firms in the United States and Japan. Zucker, Darby, and Armstrong (2000) assessed the impact of these university scientists on the research productivity of U.S. firms. A star scientist is defined as a researcher who has discovered over 40 genetic sequences, and affiliations with firms are defined through co-authoring between the star scientist and industry scientists. Some of these scientists resigned from the university to establish a new firm or kept their faculty position, but worked very closely with industry... |
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