Entrepreneurship Action: University Scientists' Choice to Commericalize their Discoveries. In Advances in Enterpreneurship, Firm Emergence and Growth

We extend the literature on scientific discovery and commercialization by examining university-based commercialization by academic scientists. We build a multi-level framework that views the scientists’ choice to first disclose viable discoveries and then pursue commercialization as a function of three factors: (i) a scientist’s rent orientation, (ii) a university’s rent doctrine, and (iii) the rent doctrine of the scientific field in which the scientist conducts research. We suggest that commercial disclosure most often occurs when there is alignment between these three factors.