University-industry technology commercialization in Malaysia: opportunities and challenges

Abstract

This study seeks to identify factors that enable and/or impede the commercialization of technologies from universities to industries, or referred to as university-industry technology commercialization (UITC), in Malaysia. Conducting qualitative case studies at four Malaysian public research universities, this study analysed how differential in the UITC performance of the four universities can be explained by the different institutional and environmental factors of the universities. The results of this study reveal that the performance of UITC at the universities is significantly affected by the existence of several gaps between the five groups of stakeholders of UITC in Malaysia; the scientists, the TTOs, the university managers, the industry and the government. Knowing these gaps may help policy makers and university managers to reflect their strategies and to alleviate the weak points in order to enhance performance of UITC in the country. Furthermore, the study also found several opportunities that, if properly utilized, may significantly improve the potential for university technologies to be successfully commercialized. The findings of this study, thus, offer substantial academic insights to academic entrepreneurship research and provide several important implications for technology transfer and commercialization of university-developed technologies.