Inside the university technology transfer office: mission statement analysis

The focus of our paper is to qualitatively explore the mission statements components of university TTOs using Pearce and David’s (Acad Manag Exec 1(2):109–115, 1987 ) eight components. Mission statements are the organization’s central defining purpose and focus. In essence an organizations’ raison d...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of technology transfer 2016-10, Vol.41 (5), p.1235-1246
Main Authors: Fitzgerald, Ciara, Cunningham, James A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Annual reports
Business and Management
Colleges & universities
Commercial Law
Correlation
Customers
Decision making
Economic Growth
Entrepreneurs
Funding
Industrial Organization
Innovation/Technology Management
Management
Markets
Mission statements
Missions
Organizations
Quantitative analysis
Strategic management
Studies
Technology transfer
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Summary:The focus of our paper is to qualitatively explore the mission statements components of university TTOs using Pearce and David’s (Acad Manag Exec 1(2):109–115, 1987 ) eight components. Mission statements are the organization’s central defining purpose and focus. In essence an organizations’ raison d’etre . Given the growing importance of the role TTOs now play, understanding components of mission statements is timely, particularly during the first phase of TTO developments. To provide insights concerning these issues our study is set in the Republic of Ireland, which has one of the top performing university and public research organization technology transfer system within the European Union. Using Pearce and David ( 1987 ) well established eight mission statement components we analyzed seven Irish university TTO mission statements. We also conducted quantitative analysis on the number of mission statement components and selected variables. We found that university TTO mission statements focused primarily on two mission components—target customers and markets and principal services. From our quantitative analysis we found moderate positive correlations between patents granted and number of mission statement components. Furthermore we found there was a positive correlation between grants granted outside of Ireland and the number of mission components. Our results, albeit they are tempered by a small sample of data, have pertinent implications for TTOs.
ISSN:0892-9912
0892-9912
1573-7047
DOI:10.1007/s10961-015-9419-6