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Overview

A Taste for Patents … at University? T he R ole of University Scientists ‘ Attitude T owards Invention Disclosure “Scientists and Inventors” Workshop Leuven, 11.05.2012 Christoph Ihl , Thomas Walter, Jan Reerink Technology & Innovation Management Group RWTH Aachen. Overview.

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Overview

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  1. A Taste for Patents … at University?The Roleof University Scientists‘ Attitude Towards Invention Disclosure“Scientists and Inventors” WorkshopLeuven, 11.05.2012ChristophIhl, Thomas Walter, Jan ReerinkTechnology & Innovation Management GroupRWTH Aachen

  2. Overview I. Motivation & Research Questions II. Theory & Prior Research III. Empirical Study IV. Results V. Discussion & Conclusion

  3. Motivation: University-invented vs. university-owned patents • Legislation has empowered universities to own patents; e.g. • US: Bayh-Dole-Act, 1980 • Germany: abolition of professors’ privilege (ArbNErfG, 2002) • (Some) universities want to be entrepreneurial • Still, substantial knowledge leaks through universities’ backdoor :academic patents owned by firms or scientists, other transfer channels • Scientists’ lack of motivation or conflicts in motivation to disclose their inventions to universities? • Universities’ lack of incentive provision or supportive environment? • Take a look inside the black box of scientists’ decision making: i.e. attitudes, motives & preferences for incentives…

  4. Research Questions: „Taste for Patents with University?“ … … scientists’ attitude towards filing an invention disclosure with their university to examine patentability: • How does it exist?Consisting of motives in line with vs. barriers in contradiction with a “taste for science”? • How does it arise? Formed by individual background and/or institutional context? • How does it matter?Workingindependently from vs. crowded in/out by external incentives?

  5. Overview I. Motivation & Research Questions II. Theory & Prior Research III. Empirical Study IV. Results V. Discussion & Conclusion

  6. Research framework Incentives InstitutionalContext Taste Invention Disclosure Individual Background

  7. Theory & Prior Research: Scientists‘ motivestobescientists • “Taste for Science” (Merton, 1973) • Autonomy : academic freedom to solve interesting puzzles & publish • Reputation: peer recognition from first discoveries & citations • Money: financial rewards less important at the margin • “Scientists pay to be scientists” (Stern, 2004) • Scientific norms (“communism”, “desinterestedness”) even disregard personal value appropriation (Merton, 1942) • “Puzzle, ribbonandgold” (Stephan & Levin, 1992) • Scientists’ taste for science have been subject to a number of recent studies (e.g. Agarwal & Ohyama, 2010; Lacetera& Zirulia, 2008; Roach & Sauermann, 2010; Sauermann& Stephan, 2010)

  8. Theory & Prior Research: Motives tocommercialize • Many studies have looked into scientists’ attitudes & motives to engage in technology transfer in general (e.g. D’Este & Perkmann, 2011) • Also barriers, negative consequences (e.g. Baldini, 2007; Krabel & Mueller, 2009) • Role adaption => attitude change (Jain, George, Maltarich2009) • Recently, attitudes / motives in relation / contrast to a “taste for science” =>”taste for commercialization (Lam, 2011; Sauermann & Roach, 2012) • ‘Loose collection’ of motives, barriers & incentives w.r.t. invention disclosure (Baldini et al.,2007) • Goal: examine effects of scientists’ attitude specifically on the decision to disclose inventions at university & relative to incentives

  9. Theory & Prior Research: Incentives tocommercialize • Motivation crowdingtheory: distinctionbetweenmotives & incentives(e.g. Frey & Jegen, 2001; Sauermann& Cohen, 2008) • Incentives are situational and contingent on behavior • Motives are stable, trait-like and describe what on cares about • Incentives can change motivation & attitudes (crowding in / out)by changing self-determination / -esteem • Previousresearchhasinvestigatedspecificincentives in isolation, e.g. • Royaltyshares(cf. Jensen et al., 2007; Lach & Schankerman, 2008; Markman et al., 2004) • TTO, Grace period(Franzioni, 2010) • Interaction betweenfinancialmotiveandincentive on commercialization in general(Sauerman et al., 2010) • Goal: examine interaction effect between attitude towards invention disclosure & a full range of incentives to determine the way of crowding

  10. Theory & Prior Research: Scientists‘ backgroundandexperience • Publications: => opportunity for patents vs. research basicness(Azoulayet al., 2007; Calderini et al., 2007) • Prior patents => they know how to do it vs. they can do it alone or have enough(Bercovitz, Feldman, 2008) • Industrial involvement: => inspiration vs. applied research / independence from university(Agrawal & Henderson; 2002) • Other: Gender, Nationality, Tenure, Tenured(Waverly, Ding et al., 2006; Bercovitz, Feldman, 2008) • Goal: explain attitude towards invention disclosure such that these trade-offs are revealed

  11. Theory & Prior Research: InstitutionalContext • Faculty quality has been shown to have an impact on the technology transfer performance (van Looy et al, 2011; Perkmann et al, 2011) • Peer effects versus contextual effects (Azouly et al, 2009; Manski, 1993) • Social learning versus Symbolic compliance (Feldman & Bercovitz, 2008) • Goal: investigate whether attitude towards invention disclosure actually mediates contextual effects -> evidence for social learning

  12. Overview I. Motivation & Research Questions II. Theory & Prior Research III. Empirical Study IV. Results V. Conclusion

  13. Empiricalstudy:Sample description • Online survey between December 2010 and March 2011 • 9 major technical universities in Germany (TU9 association) • Identification of 17,178 faculty members from engineering, naturals sciences, life sciences => e-mail invitation • 1,686 (9.4%) usable responses • Excluding technical support staff => 1,408 participants, • 147 (10.4%) full professors, 244 (17.3%) post docs / junior professors, and 1,017 (72.2%) research associates / PhD students • 77.5% male • no significant difference between sample and invited population in terms of observable indicators gender, rank, discipline, university

  14. Empiricalstudy:Sample description • To better account for different patentability across academic disciplines, we manually assigned each institute / chair to belong to one of the following categories (Jaffe, 1989; Zucker & Darby, 2006)

  15. Empiricalstudy: Motives & Incentives todiscloseinvention • Extensive qualitative researchtoexploremotives & incentivespriortosurvey: • 20 interviews and 8 in-depth case studies with patent-experienced university officials and researchers at universities in the US, the UK and Germany between January and August 2008 • Measuring attitudes as expectancy*value (e.g. Ajzen, 1988) • Motives are framed as beliefs about expected consequences rather than evaluations / importances(Sauermann & Roach, 2012) because of higher predictive value (e.g. Ajzen, 1988, Bagozzi, 1984; Valiquette, Valios, Desharnais, & Godin, 1988; Pieters, 1988)

  16. Empiricalstudy: Measurement & descriptive results for motives • Max. correlation=0.5; max VIF=1.8; max KI=16 • Cronbachα=0.86; AVE=0.43; min. loading=0.59

  17. Empiricalstudy: Manipulation of Incentives • Manipulation ofincentives in a scenario-based conjoint experiment • Frommarketingtomanagement: • decision criteria of venture capitalists (Frankeet al., 2008) • IP managers preference for protection strategies (Fischer & Henkel; 2010) • employees’ preferences for incentives to innovate (Leptien, 1995) • employees’ preferences for incentives to engage in entrepreneurship (Monsen et al., 2010) • Suffers from hypothetical bias, but also has 4 advantages: • (1) further disaggregation of incentive effects on within researcher level • (2) full range or ‘bundles’ of incentives that are not yet implemented in reality • (3) overcome potential selection bias: scientists may systematically self-select to work at ‘entrepreneurial universities’ • (4) respondents have to engage in trade-offs, which reduces the threat of inflated importances obtained from Likertscales

  18. Empiricalstudy: Manipulation ofIncentives • 4 attributes with 3 levels, 4 attributes with 2 levels • => 34* 24 = 1,296 possible combinations in a full factorial design • blocking factor with 3 levels added to split the design among groups • using Ngene software, we extracted a fraction of 36 conjoint scenarios, such that all main effects and selected two-way interactions could be estimated • respondents were randomly assigned to a block of 12 scenarios which were in turn randomized

  19. Empiricalstudy: Exemplaryconjointscenario Ratings-based instead of choice-based CA (Elrod et al., 1992) “This combination of incentives motivates me to have my work results checked for patentability and commercial usability by means of invention disclosure filings” [0=Strongly disagree; 6=Strongly agree]

  20. Empiricalstudy: Data on individual backgroundfromsurvey & secondarysources • Survey: • Gender • Nationality • Tenure • Tenured • Industrial involvement Scale • ISI WoS: papersandcitations per individual from2005-2010 • Patstat: patent applications per individual from 2005-2010: • 126 (8.95%) academicinventorswith454 patents, 43 university-owned; 11 co-ownedby firm

  21. Empiricalstudy: Data on institutionalcontextfromsecondarysources • TU9 associationbased on thefederalstatisticaloffice: • Numberofstudents, professors, scientifcstafffor 2008 • Center for University Development (CHE) – Research Ranking 2009: • NumberofPhDtheses, thirdpartyfunds total, fromDFG & industry • Patstat: numberofuniversity-owned patent applicationsfrom 2005-2010 • ISI WoS: numberofpublicationswithuniversityaffiliationsfrom 2005-2010 • bothassignedtoacademicdisciplinesaccordingtoconcordancetables(Jaffe, 1989; Zucker & Darby, 2006)

  22. Empiricalstudy: Econometricapproach • Accountingfornested, multileveldatastructure: • (1) Hierarchical linear model, random-effectsregression: • (2) Orderedlogitmodelwithrandomeffects: • Estimatedvia simulatedmaximumlikelihoodusing 100 Haltondraws • Interpretation ofestimatedcefficients via marginal effectsrecognizinginteractionterms(cf. Ai & Norton, 2003; Greene, 2010)

  23. Overview I. Motivation & Research Questions II. Theory & Prior Research III. Empirical Study IV. Results V. Conclusion

  24. Results: Estimates on Taste

  25. Results: Estimates on Taste

  26. Results: Partial effectof taste underlowincentiveconditions

  27. Results: Partial effectof taste under high incentiveconditions

  28. Results: Marginal effectsof Incentives

  29. Results: Impliedimportance

  30. Overview I. Motivation & Research Questions II. Theory & Prior Research III. Empirical Study IV. Results V. Conclusion

  31. Conclusion • Implications • „Taste“ canbeformedbothbyhiringtherightpeopleandculture / sociallearning => double benefit • Crowding-in on average, but crowding out for 25% ofpeoplewithvery high „taste“ => thesepeopleneedspecialnurture & appreciation • Limitations& next, futuresteps • furtherdisentanglecrowdingeffectsbyincentivesand (non-tenured) people • Look atmediation • Look atmoderationofindivdialbackgroundeffectsbycontext • further check & improvequalityof individual patent & pubdatafor all invitedscientists • collectdata on real patentingbehavior (in X years)

  32. ThankYou! Christoph Ihl TIM Group RWTH Aachen University +49 241 809 3577 ihl@tim.rwth-aachen.de tim.rwth-aachen.de/ihl

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