Conceptualization and measurement of university technology transfer office efficiency as a formative construct

Abstract

Although many universities have established Technology Transfer Office (TTO), there is no consensus in the literature that TTO has been successful in promoting academic entrepreneurship. Inhomogeneity of TTO services across different universities results in an inconsistent relationship between TTO formation and the rate of technology transfer activities. The TTO efficiency has been mostly researched based on the objective measures. However, far too little attention has been paid to explore the perception of academic entrepreneurs on the degree to which TTO has been efficient in greasing the wheels of their technology transfer pursuit. This paper aims to conceptualize TTO efficiency as a formative construct and to validate the proposed measurement model using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The empirical results confirmed the absence of collinearity while validity was established using a modified multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) matrix analysis. Furthermore, the indicators’ weights revealed which constituent services provided by TTO benefit academic entrepreneurs the most. This study contributes new insights into academic entrepreneurs’ perception towards the effectiveness of TTO services that further pave a way for the university to prioritize improvement measures.