| Institutions of higher education are extraordinarily dependent on external resources. Due to legal mandates and economic incentives, research universities have become increasingly active in the commercialization of university inventions. This study utilizes resource dependence theory as a framework for evaluating the influence of external resources on commercially oriented technology transfer emanating from universities. Three performance measures of university technology transfer are used including licensing revenue, licensing volume and the creation of start-up companies. Key external resources used as predictors of technology transfer performance consisted of R&D funding from federal and industry sources as well as state and regional venture capital munificence. The public or private status of a university is also posited as an indicator of technology transfer activity.; Federal R&D funding emerged as a consistent predictor of all three dependent measures. Federal and industry R&D, state venture capital investment and university type were found to be statistically significant indicators of start-up creation at the university level. The study concludes that resource dependence theory serves as a useful framework for studying environmental influences on commercial outputs of university technology transfer. |
