An exploratory study on Universiti Teknologi Malaysia’s innovation towards commercialization

Abstract

Commercialization in university has increasingly been considered as a complementary and attractive solution to new technology innovation and product marketing. However, the rate of commercialization amongst academic researchers and inventors has been discouraging. The aim of this study was to identify the problems and issues on the process of innovation and commercialization and then improve the commercialization rate in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). To achieve these goals seven factors were examined to identify how they affect on the university’s innovation and commercialization. These factors were market driven innovation, financial support, marketing and selling strategy, improve technology, time to market and time constrain, the relationship between university and industry as well as the university policy and system with the special focus on the the relationship between university and industry and its effect on the commercialization rate in UTM. This study was based on a qualitative research method and was designed to use a case study approach. A total of sixteen face-to-face interviews were conducted. Respondents were chosen from inventors, academic researchers and innovation and commercialization centre staff in UTM. The researcher utilized the content-analysis approach to analyze the data obtained from the semi-structured interviews. The results indicated that, the most critical factor was relationship between university and industry and role of financial support. This study also addressed the implications and recommendation for research and practitioners. Suggestions were provided to enhance the role of academic researchers and inventors toward commercialization.