Determinants of Technology Transfer Success: Evidence from New Zealand Public Research Organisations

Technology transfer from public research organisations is increasingly recognised as a key mechanism to facilitate economic impacts. Given its economic relevance, scholars are increasingly trying to understand technology transfer success and its determinants. However, technology transfer success is not well defined, and the literature on determinants remains fragmented. We investigate the goals and determinants of technology transfer across research institutes and universities within the New Zealand 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 technology transfer professionals across five research institutes and six universities. Our findings indicate that technology transfer success goals and determinants are largely shared across the two types of public research organisations, with some contextual differences emergent. Technology transfer success is defined temporally by short- and long-term goals, with public research organisations emphasising longer-term outcomes over short-term outputs and returns. Determinants for technology transfer 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.