Intellectual property coordinators' cohorts: A study into the imprints in university technology transfer
研究了大学技术转移办公室中知识产权协调员的入职群体对专利和许可活动的长期影响，发现不同时期入职的协调员在技术转移行为上存在显著差异，且这种群体效应难以被后续变化消除。
The primary aim of Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) is to enhance technology transfers, resulting in the commercialization of science. Technology transfer has typically been analyzed at the individual level of the core research staff or with the focus on the TTO as a whole, overlooking the fact that the university technology transfer is administered by intellectual property (IP) coordinators. This paper focuses on exposing a potentially crucial factor in technology transfer; the effects of cohorts based on imprinting. The imprinting theory implies that imprints are persistent and manifest themselves in the core activities of the IP coordinators' cohorts in the long term. We bring to light the effects of IP coordinators' cohorts on patenting and licensing, and test a conceptual model of inter-cohort variability. We analyze the patenting and licensing data of 18,393 patent cases and 845 licensed cases, handled by 63 IP coordinators. In combination with human resource data, we show that in the technology transfer process, IP coordinators’' cohorts matter. Using discriminant analysis, we demonstrate that some aspects of technology transfer activities are more typical for one cohort than the others. Variations between cohorts suggest that they are influenced by the prevailing practices inside the TTO at the time of hiring. Cohort patterns are also distinct in the two key technology transfer activities (patenting and licensing). Regression analysis shows that cohort effects remain resistant to erosion even when faced with subsequent changes as captured by organizational and individual time-period effects.