ARTICLE IN PRESS

Technovation 29 (2009) 142–153

www.elsevier.com/locate/technovation

University researchers working with private companies

P. Craig Boardmana,, Branco L. Ponomariovb
a
Science and Technology Policy Institute, Washington, DC, USA
b
University of Illinois-Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

Abstract

Despite the growing interest in university–industry interactions, there has been little systematic assessment of the university scientists
who work with private companies. This study uses a national survey of tenured and tenure-track scientists in the US to identify personal
and professional characteristics that affect whether university scientists interact with private companies and, if so, the ways in which they
interact. We account for a broad range of professional and personal predictors of scientists’ interactions with the private sector, including
funding sources, institutional affiliations, tenure status, support of students, scientific values, and demographic attributes. The
motivation for this broad-based analysis is similar to that which has motivated studies of the ‘‘entrepreneurial university’’ demonstrating
how a slew of factors including unique histories, traditions, and organizational structures shape universities’ approaches to knowledge
exchanges and technology transfers with industry [Bercovitz, J.E.L., Feldman, M.P., Feller, I., Burton, R.M., 2001. Organizational
structure as a determinant of academic patent and licensing behavior: an exploratory study of Duke, Johns Hopkins, and Pennsylvania
State Universities. Journal of Technology Transfer 26, 21–35; O’Shea, R.P., Allen, T.J., Chevalier, A., Roche, F., 2005. Entrepreneurial
orientation, technology transfer and spinoff performance of U.S. universities. Research Policy 34 (7), 994–1009]. Similarly, we start with
the premise that there is substantial individual-level variation amongst university scientists that governs whether and how they may
interact with private companies.
r 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: University–industry interaction; Technology transfer

1. Introduction In contrast, there has been little assessment of the

University–industry interactions facilitate the transfer of
technology and knowledge to the private sector, usually
towards needs not fully addressed by markets (Combs and
Link, 2003). Depending on the objectives involved, these
interactions can take many forms, including research
contracts and the establishment of boundary-spanning
research centers. On the other hand, a large proportion of
university–industry interactions may be informal (Hage-
doorn et al., 2000). Most study justifiably has focused on
the outcomes for private firms that such interactions often
intend to facilitate and produce, such as firms’ R&D
investment rates (Nelson, 1986), patenting rates (Adams
et al., 2001), and new technology and process development
(Mansfield, 1995).
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 404 274 2125.
E-mail address: pboardma@ida.org (P. Craig Boardman).
university scientists who work with private companies,
though some of the most prominent indicators of success-
ful university–industry interactions may be related to inter-
personal exchanges (Johnson and Tornatzky, 1984). While
there is increasing interest in university–industry interac-
tions at the individual-level of analysis, these studies focus
almost exclusively on a limited spectrum of interactions,
most notably technology licensing (Thursby et al., 2001;
Thursby and Thursby, 2004). While important, scientists’
involvement in patenting and, often, in post-disclosure
interactions with private companies licensing their inven-
tions represent a very limited picture of the ways in which
university scientists may work with private companies.
University scientists interact with private companies in
many other ways that do not necessarily show ‘‘on the
books’’ of university administration and technology
transfer offices. To assess the extent and determinants of
alternate modes of interaction, it is necessary to analyze

0166-4972/$ - see front matter r 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.technovation.2008.03.008
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
P. Craig Boardman, B.L. Ponomariov / Technovation 29 (2009) 142–153
individual-level data measuring relationships between
university scientists’ behaviors, productivity, and funding
sources (Thursby and Thursby, 2004), as well as other
characteristics including institutional relations, personal
attributes, and scientific values.
This study constitutes such an analysis. While of late there
has been some work identifying numerous alternate inter-
actions (i.e., other than patenting and licensing) that occur
between academe and industry, these studies frequently
remain focused on the perspective of the firm to identify
how private companies benefit from these interactions
(e.g., Feller et al., 2002) or to determine which firm-level
characteristics help to predict the occurrence of specific types
of interactions. The current study focuses on the university
perspective using a national survey of tenured and tenure-
track scientists in US ‘‘research extensive’’ universities
(Carnegie Foundation, 2002) to identify personal and
professional characteristics that correlate with reports of
interacting with private companies.
We account for a broad range of individual-level
characteristics that could help explain university scientists’
interactions with private companies. These characteristics
include professional attributes—such as grants activity and
sources, institutional affiliation with university-based
research centers, collaborations with peers and students,
tenure status, and academic discipline—as well as personal
attributes—such as gender, race, age, and reported
scientific values. Therefore, the current study is more
exploratory than is it driven by any unified theory of
university scientists’ industry involvement. However, we
draw upon extant research and theory in predicting and
explaining university scientists’ performance of specific
types of work with private companies, including ‘‘infor-
mal’’ interactions such as information exchange, ‘‘aca-
demic’’ interactions such as co-authoring papers, and
‘‘entrepreneurial’’ interactions such as patenting.
The rationale motivating this broad-based analysis is
similar to that which has motivated exploratory studies of
the ‘‘entrepreneurial university’’, demonstrating how a slew
of factors including unique histories, traditions, and
organizational structures shape universities’ approaches
to knowledge exchanges and technology transfers with
industry (Bercovitz et al., 2001; O’Shea et al., 2005).
Similarly, we start with the premise that there is substantial
individual-level variation amongst university scientists that
governs whether and how they may interact with private
companies. A series of logistic regression models are
presented to demonstrate the effects that individual-level
characteristics have on the likelihood that university
scientists have engaged in a variety of interactions with
private companies while occupying academic posts.
2. Literature and hypotheses
Since at least the early 1980s, there has been substantial
scholarly and policy interest in university–industry interac-
tions. This interest has generated a body of work that varies
143
greatly with respect to perspective (industry, university,
government), structure (formal, informal), level of analysis
(market, organization, individual), and effect (economic,
academic, scientific capacity, institutional, cultural, manage-
ment). A review of this diverse work is not within the scope
of this paper. However, we develop hypotheses based on
propositions derived from this body of scholarship. The
hypotheses presented below propose a range of individual-
level factors that help to explain university scientists’ work-
related interactions with the private sector.
2.1. Industry grants
There is some empirical precedent for assessing the
impact of industry funding on universities and university
scientists. Bogler (1994) uses survey data to show that
university researchers in the US receiving research funds
from private companies harbor more favorable attitudes
towards university–industry interactions. Bozeman and
Gaughan (2007) demonstrates having industry grants to
increase the industry ‘‘involvement’’ of university scientists.
Gulbrandsen and Smeby (2005) use survey data to
demonstrate that university researchers in Norway with
industry grants are more likely to characterize their
research as ‘‘applied,’’ more productive in terms of
publishing and patents, and to collaborate more when
compared to researchers without industry funding. Van
Looy et al. (2004) perform a case study of a single
university in Belgium to demonstrate that industry funds
correlate positively with university researchers’ publication
rates and ‘‘entrepreneurial’’ activities.
Theoretically, there are a number of potential explana-
tions for these effects. Scientific and technical human
capital (Bozeman et al., 2001) theory would suggest that
when scientists have industry funding, their respective
professional networks and resource caches are enhanced to
include scientists working in private companies. Accord-
ingly, the likelihood of interacting with industry on work-
related tasks increases. Moreover, university scientists with
industry funding probably are relatively successful at
procuring non-industry support as well and, therefore,
are more productive with regard to both entrepreneurial
and academic outputs (Owen-Smith, 2003). Hence,
Hypothesis 1. Having industry grants increases the like-
lihood of interacting with private companies in any capacity,
including informal knowledge exchanges as well as the
performance of entrepreneurial activities (paid consulting,
technology transfer and commercialization, patents, copy-
rights) and academic activities (co-authoring refereed
papers, placing students and post-docs in industry jobs).
2.2. Percentage of work time supported by government
research grants, contracts, and cooperative agreements
The number of grants a university scientist has is an
imperfect indicator of grants activity insofar that absolute
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144 P. Craig Boardman, B.L. Ponomariov / Technovation 29 (2009) 142–153
grant counts do not necessarily correlate positively with the
total dollar amounts a university scientist may have in
grants-based funding. To measure government grants
activity, instead of counting the number of grants, we
measure the percentage of work time supported by
government research grants. (Unfortunately, we do not
have a comparable measure for industry grants activity.)
This measure, by capturing more accurately the extent of
involvement of a university scientist in government-
supported research, also approximates the preeminence,
or the success of a scientist in his or her field (Siegel et al.,
2003). Given that federal grant-funding is based predomi-
nantly on the peer-review process, the ability of a scientist
to win government grants which essentially ‘‘buy’’ the
scientist’s time, is indicative of success in the field overall.
There is little empirical precedent from which to
formulate hypotheses about the effect of government
funding on university scientists’ industry interactions.
General theories of time allocation are perhaps instructive
by defining time allocations as ‘‘investments’’ that indivi-
duals make based upon the relative expected returns for the
time allocated to each activity (Rosen, 1974). Because one
of the primary expected returns to time devoted to
government-funded research is the production of refereed
journal articles and conference presentations, one may
expect a negative relationship between government funding
and industry interactions.
However, the more involved a scientist is in federally
funded research, perhaps the more successful and more
productive that scientist becomes, which in turn could
indicate to private companies a potentially fruitful
university–industry interaction, thereby leading to informal
knowledge exchanges as well as to both entrepreneurial
and academic interactions, including the co-authoring of
refereed papers. Indeed, several works have shown that
scientists who are highly successful in commercialization
activities are also among the most productive scientists
(Zucker and Darby, 1996). Moreover, this university
scientist may be motivated to interact with private
companies not just for access to additional resources and
funds (Slaughter and Rhoades, 2004), but also for access to
potential co-authors who can help to capitalize on the time
invested in government research:
Hypothesis 2. The greater the proportion of scientists’
work time supported by government grants, the higher the
likelihood of interacting with private companies.
2.3. Affiliation with a university-based research center
Many (though not all) centers sponsored by government-
funded university research centers programs—such as
those sponsored by the US National Science Foundation
(NSF)—require centers to recruit industry partners (Gray,
1998; Bozeman and Boardman, 2004). Much of the
research on the relationships between university research
centers and industry is conducted at the organization-level
and from the perspective of the firm. No less, some of these
studies are indirectly helpful for formulating hypotheses
here. Feller et al. (2002), for example, demonstrate private
companies to report benefiting from working with NSF
Engineering Research Centers by way of the students and
post-docs they acquire for placement in full-time positions
and access to ‘‘upstream’’ modes of knowledge. A series of
studies addressing private companies’ strategic objectives
for partnering with other NSF centers show that private
companies partner to work on patents and licenses and to
acquire new skills (Santoro and Chakrabarti, 2002;
Santoro and Betts, 2002). Although there is little empirical
research assessing directly the relationship between center
affiliation and university–industry interactions from the
university perspective and at the individual-level of
analysis, the above organization-level findings imply that
university scientists place students in industry jobs, transfer
knowledge and skills to private companies, and work with
companies on patents and licenses.
Causally, the rationale of scientific and technical human
capital theory applies—especially as articulated by Dietz
and Bozeman (2005), who emphasize how past institutional
affiliations with the private sector can increase university
scientists’ publishing and patenting rates. Centers, like
industry grants, are means with which university scientists
acquire research funding as well as access to collaborators
in industry. Accordingly, center affiliation expands the
professional networks and resource caches of university
scientists to include industry scientists, thereby increasing
the likelihood of interaction with industry:
Hypothesis 3. Affiliation with a university research center
increases the likelihood of interacting with private compa-
nies.
2.4. Number of collaborators
Research collaboration is a predictor of research
productivity (Price and Beaver, 1966) and indicative of a
general behavioral strategy for facilitating research pro-
ductivity (Bozeman and Corley, 2004). The motivations to
collaborate are often resource-based, including the special
competences of the collaborators or access to the special
data, equipment and infrastructure, or funds that colla-
borators possess (Melin, 2000). However, there is also
evidence that research collaborations are motivated simply
by common intellectual interests (Beaver, 2001; Katz and
Martin, 1997) or to encourage disciplinary cross-fertiliza-
tion (Beaver and Rosen, 1978; Melin, 2000).
Both types of motivation may be relevant to university
scientists’ interactions with industry. In an environment of
‘‘steady state’’ (Ziman, 1994) funding, university scientists
act as ‘‘academic capitalists’’ (Slaughter and Leslie, 1997)
to procure from as many sources as required the funding
and access to equipment, collaborators, and other
resources they need to be productive scientists. Moreover,
the scientific pursuits of universities and industry have
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P. Craig Boardman, B.L. Ponomariov / Technovation 29 (2009) 142–153 145

become more aligned in recent years (Link et al., 2006). publishing. Junior-level scientists incur a higher cost (the
Accordingly, scientists who collaborate more, all else ‘‘cost’’ of interacting with private companies in addition to
equal, perhaps exhibit a greater general propensity to enter an fulfilling tasks and duties for an academic department),
into collaborations with industry: at least in terms of academic career advancement, than
incur tenured faculty (Braxton and Del Favero, 2002;
Hypothesis 4. Scientists who report having greater number
Diamond, 1993, 1999) and therefore shun industry inter-
of collaborators are also more likely to interact with
actions for more traditional academic tasks and duties.
industry in any capacity.
This reasoning is consistent with theories of time allocation
defining time allocations as ‘‘investments’’ (Rosen, 1974).
2.5. Number of students funded
However, much of this study is anecdotal or speculative.
Empirical support for the potential deterrent effect that
Prior research suggests a positive relationship between
not having tenure may have regarding university scientists
student support and industry interactions. Behrens and
working with private companies can be found in studies of
Gray (2001) show that graduate students increasingly are
scientists affiliated with university research centers. Board-
drawn to industry jobs after graduation. Bozeman and
man and Ponomariov (2007) demonstrate that having
Corley (2004) demonstrate university scientists with strong
tenure increases center scientists’ valuation of applied and
student mentoring orientations to be more likely to hold
commercially relevant research. If such values translate
positive attitudes towards industry interactions. Accord-
into matching behavior, then it is plausible to expect that
ingly, it seems likely that university scientists who support
tenured scientists will be more likely to interact with
more students will be more likely to interact with industry.
industry. Boardman and Bozeman (2007) use interviews to
One potential explanation for this relationship may
arrive at similar findings, with untenured university
simply be that university scientists’ relationships with the
scientists reporting that they sometimes shun center-based
students they support often are preserved and even
activities for activities that ‘‘count’’ in departmental tenure
exploited after graduation. Students who take industry
decisions. Hence,
jobs often contact their former advisors for consultation,
and can also provide opportunities to university scientists
Hypothesis 6. Having tenure in an academic depart-
for access to funds for mutually beneficial research
ment increases the likelihood of interacting with private
(Behrens and Gray, 2001). Another explanation may be
companies.
that students supported through grants are a central
dimension of university scientists’ research capacity,
suitable for work that might be of greater relevance for
2.7. Scientific values
industry than for furthering the boundaries of knowledge
in a discipline or field (Ponomariov, 2008). Researchers
In a study of the cognitive effects of university–industry
who support more students through grants invest in
interactions, Etzkowitz (1998) suggests that an individual-
maintaining a pool of human resources that they could
level value shift has occurred wherein the traditional
easily deploy to tackle various research problems. This type
academic scientific value ‘‘extension of knowledge’’ has
of flexibility as well as the type of work most likely to be
been incorporated into a compatible relationship with the
performed by students (e.g., experimental, prototyping,
entrepreneurial scientific value ‘‘capitalization of knowl-
software writing and testing) is one factor that can enhance
edge.’’ Etzkowitz is careful not to generalize this claim or
the university scientists’ capacity to pursue and act on
to overextend the logic to the universities in which these
industry-related opportunities. But this is what also makes
scientists work, acknowledging that the ‘‘model of separate
the scientist an attractive partner for industrial collabora-
spheres and technology transfer across strongly defined
tors—the presence of students to advise on equipment
boundaries is still commonplace’’ (p. 827). In a separate
issues, write and troubleshoot software, perform tests and
study (Etzkowitz et al., 2000), he makes similar claims at
experiments—which are likely to be crucial at the
the university-level of analysis.
‘‘experimentation stage’’ (Randazzese, 1996) in universi-
While there may be evidence of a cultural shift in
ty–industry interactions. Thus,
scientific values on university campuses, this shift has not
Hypothesis 5. Number of students supported through been absolute. Discussed above, Boardman and Ponomar-
grants will positively affect interactions with industry. iov (2007) suggest as much with respect to tenure status,
finding tenured university scientists to have more positive
2.6. Tenure status attitudes towards the conduct of applied and commercially
relevant research when compared to their untenured but
Studies concerned with the traditional academic reward tenure-track counterparts. Therefore, in any assessment of
template’s emphasis on publications suggest that universi- individual-level antecedents to university scientists’ inter-
ty–industry interactions are viewed by untenured but actions with industry, it is appropriate to control for
tenure-track scientists as time and effort taken away from variation across scientists’ attitudes and values—at least
potentially academic career-advancing activities, such as those pertaining to work with private companies.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
146 P. Craig Boardman, B.L. Ponomariov / Technovation 29 (2009) 142–153
Particularly important is assessing whether taken-for-
granted scientific values affect the likelihood of pursuing
interactions with private companies. Such values include
the precedence of the investment and consumption values
of conducting research over the tangible rewards associated
with it and, related, the preference for purely curiosity-
driven research versus applied and commercially relevant
research. The idealized university scientist’s preference
structure is constrained by the norms of disinterestedness,
communalism, and organized skepticism (Strandburg,
2005)—all potentially in conflict with industry-relevant
research, which often is influenced by extra-scientific
considerations, whereby full disclosure is not always
appropriate and there exist strong incentives to draw
attention away from possible sources of error. Therefore,
the extent to which a university scientist subscribes to basic
scientific norms might influence his likelihood of interact-
ing with industry. The data analyzed for this project allows
us to roughly approximate the extent of respondents’
identification with the norms of communalism and disin-
terestedness:
Hypothesis 7. (Disinterestedness) Characterizing research
with commercial applications as detracting from the
quality of research decreases the likelihood of interacting
with private companies.
Hypothesis 8. (Communalism) Valuing an increased cita-
tion rate over an increased salary decreases the likelihood
of interacting with private companies.
2.8. Gender
Most research on women in science concludes that
women scientists collaborate less and produce less than
their male counterparts (Long and McGinnis, 1985; Long
and Fox, 1995). The reasons for this gender gap have been
shown to include less access for women scientists to
mentors (Long and McGinnis, 1985) and resources during
training (Fox, 1995) when compared to male scientists.
Because of these structural constraints, women scientists do
not progress as far as male scientists in academic careers
(Long et al., 1993).
Based on the findings for collaboration alone, scientific
and technical human capital theory would suggest a
positive relationship between being male and working with
private companies. Based on the findings for productivity,
men are more likely than women to be contacted by private
companies about their research and more likely to receive
industry funds and engage in collaborative work with
industry scientists. This rationale is further supported
by findings suggesting that women scientists are less
productive due to relatively heightened awareness of
organizational constraints (Fox and Ferri, 1992). Multiple
studies have suggested that interactions with industry are
not always seen positively by academic departments
(Stahler and Tash, 1994; Boardman and Bozeman, 2007),
which may deter women scientists from engaging in with
private companies before it deters male scientists (due to
women scientists’ heightened awareness of organizational
constraints):
Hypothesis 9. Being male increases the likelihood of
interacting with private companies.
The set of the above hypotheses situates university
scientists’ interactions with private companies within a
relatively complete (in comparison with prior studies) web
of variables describing much of the individual-level
constraints scientists work within. In turn, this allows for
assessing the place that interactions with private companies
occupy within the set of activities scientists engage in
professionally, and more importantly—to assess what
aspects of their professional lives seem to encourage or
deter such interactions with industry.
3. Data and method
3.1. Data
The data for this analysis were drawn from a national
survey of US university scientists conducted from August
2003 to July 2004. The sample frame comprised tenured
and tenure track scientists and engineers in 13 disciplines
employed in ‘‘Research Extensive’’ (formerly ‘‘Research I’’)
universities, as defined by the Carnegie Classification
(Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
2002). The sample was stratified by academic discipline,
academic rank, and gender.
The scientific disciplines in the sample included biology,
computer science, mathematics, physics, earth and atmo-
spheric science, chemistry, and agriculture, as well as five
sub-disciplines of engineering including chemical, civil,
electrical, mechanical, and materials. Sociology was also
included in the sample, but it is not considered in the
analyses in this paper.
The sampling frame was composed of 36,874 names of
faculty from which a sample of 4916 individuals was
drawn. The data were collected via a mail survey that
followed Dillman’s (2000) ‘‘tailored design method.’’ The
survey was terminated with a response rate of 38%. After
removing sociologists and faculty employed at EPSCoR
universities and HBCUs from the sample, the final N for
this dataset included 1643 university researchers. The
survey focused on various domains of faculty activity,
including funding, collaboration, affiliation with university
research centers, career trajectory, and distribution of work
effort.
3.2. Method
This study uses nine dichotomous dependent variables.
The first indicates whether respondents have interacted in
any capacity with the private sector during the 12 months
preceding their completion of the survey (1 ¼ yes; 0 ¼ no).
The next eight dependent variables indicate specific modes
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
P. Craig Boardman, B.L. Ponomariov / Technovation 29 (2009) 142–153
of interaction with the private sector for the same time
period, including being contacted by industry informally,
having contacted industry informally, paid consulting,
placing students in industry jobs, being an owner or
employee of a private firm, patenting and/or copyrighting,
transferring and commercializing technology, and co-
authoring papers for refereed journals and conferences
(1 ¼ yes; 0 ¼ no). The eight variables indicating specific
types of industry interaction are not mutually exclusive.
We use logistic regression analysis to identify ante-
cedents to university researchers’ interactions with indus-
try. The basic statistical models to be estimated are as
follows:
Y ¼ b0 þ b1 INDGRANTS þ b2 TIMEGOVT
þ b3 CENTER þ b4 TOTCOL þ b5 TOTSTUD
þ b6 ENG þ b7 PHYS þ b8 CS þ b9 AG
þ b10 TENURED þ b11 MALE þ b12 AGE
þ b13 DISINTRST þ b14 COMMUNAL
þ b15 WHITE þ e,
where Y indicates the spectrum of binary dependent
variables reflecting different types of interactions with
industry. All variables are described in Table 1.
4. Results
Logistic regression analysis was used to analyze the
effects of university scientists’ personal and professional
characteristics on the likelihood of engaging in discrete
types of research-related interactions with private compa-
nies. For the first regression model—using the ‘‘general’’
dependent variable indicating any type of interaction with
private companies—a broad range of personal and
professional characteristics had statistically significant
effects. University scientists with industry grants; affilia-
tions with university research centers; who support
students with grants-based funds; are engineers, computer
or agricultural scientists; have tenure; whose attitudes
towards science are not closely aligned with traditional
Mertonian scientific values; and who are non-minorities are
more likely to have research-related interactions of any
type with industry. In contrast, gender, age, number of
research collaborators, percentage of work time supported
by government grants, and working in a physical sciences
department did not affect the likelihood of working with
private companies.
Though these results support in a general way a majority
of the hypotheses for this study, they do not reveal
relationships between specific individual-level characteris-
tics and particular modes of university–industry interac-
tion. Moreover, some personal and professional
characteristics that do not demonstrate statistically sig-
nificant effects in the general model show significant
impacts for the ‘‘specific’’ dependent variables (Table 2).
Accordingly, the remainder of this section focuses on the
147
results of the regression models for discrete types of
industry interactions.
4.1. Industry grants
The number of industry grants a university scientist has
positively correlates with all but one type of university–in-
dustry interaction included on the survey—being an owner
or employee of a private company. These results reinforce
previous findings (discussed above with the hypotheses)
conducted at the organization-level of analysis, from the
firm perspective (Santoro and Chakrabarti, 2002; Santoro
and Betts, 2002; Feller et al., 2002).
The regression results also demonstrate some relatively
novel findings. For instance, each additional industry grant
is shown to increase the likelihood of university scientists
co-authoring with industry scientists papers for peer-
reviewed journals and conferences—an ‘‘open/academic’’
activity rather than a ‘‘proprietary/economic’’ one. In
contrast, many (e.g., Rhoades and Slaughter, 2004) have
suggested that university–industry interactions deter such
activities. Industry grants also increase the likelihood of
university scientists initiating contact with private compa-
nies about research and of their working for companies as
paid consultants. Moreover, being funded by industry has
no discernible effect on the likelihood of starting a
company or working for a company as an employee or
partner. This perhaps implies that when scientists recognize
commercial potential of their inventions and are willing
and able to exploit it on their own, they may attempt to
capture the possible returns themselves, rather than rely on
industry funding, which in all likelihood would come with
some expectation that the returns on the invention are
shared with the funders in some way.
4.2. Percentage of time supported by government grants
The impact of the percentage of time supported by
government grants had no direct impact on all but one of
the different types of interaction with industry—co-
authoring academic papers with industry personnel. Per
the rationale in the original hypothesis, percentage of work
time supported by government grants is a good proxy for a
scientist’s general ability and productivity. This result is
consistent with such reasoning as it implies that more able
and more productive scientists are also more capable of
pursuing a variety of publication opportunities, including
ones with industry colleagues. This finding is also
consistent with prior work conducted at the organization-
level of analysis suggesting that success in basic science is
associated with success in commercially relevant science
(Owen-Smith, 2003). The results reinforce this finding at
the individual level, but also qualify it by suggesting that
academically successful scientists are not necessarily more
likely to engage in any form of industry-relevant activities.
Instead, they may be selective in terms of what industry-
related opportunities to pursue and prefer ones that have
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148 P. Craig Boardman, B.L. Ponomariov / Technovation 29 (2009) 142–153

Table 1
Descriptive statistics (N ¼ 1643)

Variable Description Mean S.D. Range

Dependent variables
WORKCOMP Have you had any working relations with private companies during 0.51 0.50 0–1
the past 12 months?
CONTACTED Persons from a private company have asked for information about my 0.37 0.48 0–1
research and I have provided it
ICONTACTED I contacted persons in industry asking about their research 0.19 0.39 0–1
CONSULTANT I served as a formal paid consultant to an industrial firm 0.18 0.39 0–1
PLACESTUD I helped place graduate students or post-docs in industry jobs 0.25 0.43 0–1
WORKED I worked at a company with which I am owner, partner, or employee 0.04 0.18 0–1
PATENT I worked directly with industry personnel in work that resulted in a 0.06 0.23 0–1
patent or copyright
TRANSFER I worked directly with industry personnel in an effort to transfer or 0.16 0.37 0–1
commercialize technology or applied research
COAUTHORED I co-authored a paper with industry personnel that has been published 0.15 0.36 0–1
in a journal or refereed proceedings
Explanatory variables
INDGRANTS Number of industry grants 0.14 0.44 0–4
TIMEGOVT Percentage of work time supported by government grants, contracts 21.69 21.31 0–100
or cooperative agreements
CENTER Affiliated with a university research center 0.31 0.46 0–1
TOTCOL Total number of collaborators 12.96 44.20 0–1630
TOTSTUD Total number of graduate students supported through grants 2.91 3.15 0–40
ENGINEERING Engineering 0.41 0.49 0–1
PHYSICAL Physical Sciences 0.35 0.48 0–1
AGRI Agriculture 0.08 0.27 0–1
BIOL Biology 0.08 0.27 0–1
CS Computer Science 0.08 0.28 0–1
TENURED Associate or full professor 0.73 0.44 0–1
MALE Male 0.49 0.50 0–1
AGE Age (number of years) 47.51 10.56 27–82
DISINTRST Worrying about possible commercial applications distracts one from 2.20 0.91 1 (strongly disagree)–4
doing good research (strongly agree)
COMMUNAL I did rather double my citation rate rather than double my salary 2.26 0.97 1 (strongly disagree)–4
(strongly agree)

direct link to their research agendas versus ones associated
with more applied work.
4.3. Affiliation with a university-based research center
Affiliation with a university research center positively
correlates with all but the explicitly ‘‘entrepreneurial’’
university–industry interactions included on the survey,
such as working in a company as an owner, partner or
employee, consulting, and patenting. University scientists
who work in centers are more likely to be on both the
recipient and initiating ends of informal knowledge
exchanges with private companies, place students and
post-docs in industry jobs, work on technology transfer,
and co-author papers with industry scientists. Though
technology transfer seems entrepreneurial relative to the
other types of interactions, it is not necessarily so when
compared to patenting, working as a paid consultant, or as
an employee or owner of a firm (for which center affiliation
had no statistically significant effects).
The results for center affiliation are especially interesting
when considered in tandem with the findings for industry
grants. While each additional industry grant increases the
likelihood of university scientists engaging in explicitly
entrepreneurial activities related to intellectual property
rights and paid work for private companies, center
affiliation facilitates university–industry interactions that
are less contrasted to traditional academic norms and
activities. Accordingly, grants and research centers con-
stitute distinct mechanisms conducive to variable outcomes
regarding university–industry interactions, though there is
overlap in the findings regarding informal knowledge
exchanges and co-authorship.
4.4. Number of collaborators
We find only weak evidence supporting the hypothesis
regarding the number of collaborators a respondent has.
The only type of interaction with industry that is affected
(positively) by the number of collaborators is proactively
contacting a private company about their research. This
Table 2
Logistic regression results (N ¼ 1643)

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9)

Any interaction Persons from a I contacted I served as a I helped place I worked at a I worked directly I worked directly with I co-authored a paper
with industry private company persons in formal paid graduate students company with with industry industry personnel in with industry
have asked for industry asking consultant to an or post-docs in which I am owner, personnel in work an effort to transfer or personnel that has
information about about their industrial firm industry jobs partner, or that resulted in a commercialize been published in a
my research and I research employee patent or technology or applied journal or refereed
have provided it copyright research proceedings

Number of 1.450 (0.272) 0.780 (0.155) 0.728 (0.139) 0.344 (0.136) 0.705 (0.161) 0.205 (0.268) 0.750 (0.162) 0.661 (0.143) 0.863 (0.141)
industry grants
Percentage of work 0.002 (0.003) 0.004 (0.003) 0.002 (0.004) 0.002 (0.004) 0.004 (0.003) 0.003 (0.008) 0.003 (0.006) 0.002 (0.004) 0.007 (0.004)

P. Craig Boardman, B.L. Ponomariov / Technovation 29 (2009) 142–153

time supported by
government grants,
contracts or
cooperative
agreements
Affiliated with a 0.354 (0.14) 0.430 (0.135) 0.336 (0.153) 0.091 (0.158) 0.348 (0.149) 0.041 (0.324) 0.171 (0.26) 0.266 (0.167) 0.504 (0.167)
university research

ARTICLE IN PRESS
center
Total number of 0.003 (0.002) 0.004 (0.004) 0.005 (0.003) 0 (0.001) 0.004 (0.003) 0 (0.001) 0 (0.001) 0 (0.001) 0 (0.001)
collaborators
Total number of 0.121 (0.028) 0.129 (0.027) 0.097 (0.025) 0.094 (0.025) 0.186 (0.028) 0.112 (0.055) 0.134 (0.056) 0.193 (0.027) 0.100 (0.024)
graduate students
supported through
grants
Engineering 2.017 (0.255) 1.652 (0.292) 1.241 (0.366) 1.109 (0.345) 2.512 (0.517) 1.254 (0.778) 1.192 (0.749) 1.350 (0.479) 1.755 (0.521)
Physical Sciences 0.107 (0.256) 0.114 (0.303) 0.408 (0.398) 0.162 (0.36) 1.147 (0.525) 0.413 (0.874) 0.205 (0.788) 0.251 (0.497) 0.662 (0.539)
Agriculture 2.104 (0.309 1.989 (0.333) 1.427 (0.403) 0.874 (0.387) 2.425 (0.546) 0.528 (0.919) 1.277 (0.786) 2.549 (0.505) 1.814 (0.561)
Computer Science 1.181 (0.297) 1.144 (0.334) 0.970 (0.407) 0.615 (0.409) 2.283 (0.545) 0.68 (0.923) 0.686 (0.837) 1.401 (0.519) 1.614 (0.552)
Tenured 0.304 (0.178) 0.526 (0.177) 0.137 (0.204) 0.413 (0.222) 0.565 (0.209) 0.302 (0.581) 0.137 (0.397) 0.09 (0.237) 0.004 (0.235)
Male 0.206 (0.131) 0.129 (0.13) 0.174 (0.153) 0.601 (0.153) 0.269 (0.141) 1.281 (0.361) 0.049 (0.261) 0.422 (0.167) 0.163 (0.165)
Age 0.007 (0.007) 0.022 (0.008) 0.003 (0.009) 0.007 (0.009) 0.005 (0.009) 0.021 (0.017) 0.027 (0.014) 0.013 (0.01) 0.018 (0.01)
Worrying about 0.157 (0.07) 0.124 (0.069) 0.127 (0.08) 0.160 (0.083) 0.178 (0.078) 0.887 (0.208) 0.394 (0.154) 0.221 (0.088) 0.188 (0.092)
possible
commercial
applications
distracts one from
doing good
research
I did rather double 0.114 (0.068) 0.063 (0.068) 0.108 (0.076) 0.165 (0.081) 0.022 (0.075) 0.071 (0.167) 0.245 (0.145) 0.014 (0.085) 0.014 (0.086)
my citation rate
rather than double
my salary
White 0.361 (0.168) 0.562 (0.173) 0.078 (0.19) 0.579 (0.223) 0.575 (0.197) 1.526 (0.644) 0.39 (0.379) 0.295 (0.221) 0.008 (0.209)
Constant 1.391 (0.493) 1.855 (0.521) 2.706 (0.65) 3.350 (0.606) 4.501 (0.734) 6.214 (1.354) 4.702 (1.14) 4.408 (0.707) 4.509 (0.741)
Observations 1524 1524 1524 1524 1524 1524 1524 1524 1524

Robust standard errors in parentheses.

 Significant at 10%.
Significant at 5%.
Significant at 1%.

149
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
150 P. Craig Boardman, B.L. Ponomariov / Technovation 29 (2009) 142–153
result is consistent with the rationale outlined in the
hypothesis, namely that individuals with greater propensity
to collaborate overall will also exhibit greater propensity to
seek collaborative opportunities with the private sector.
Proactively seeking research contacts may be interpreted as
indicative of such opportunity-seeking behavior.
4.5. Number of graduate students funded
The number of students a university scientist supports
with research grants positively correlates with every type of
university–industry interaction included on the survey.
Hence, as the number of students university scientists
support increases, so increases the likelihood that they have
been contacted by industry about research, contacted
industry for similar reasons, worked as a paid consultant,
placed students and or post-docs in industry jobs, worked
on patents or copyrights, worked to transfer and commer-
cialize research, and co-authored refereed papers with
industry scientists. The number of students supported also
increases the probability of being an owner, partner, or
employee of a private firm. Different than (though not
necessarily contradictory to) some claims about the impact
of industry on academe, the results demonstrate students to
be a component of university–industry interactions.
4.6. Tenure status
Being tenured positively affects the likelihood of enga-
ging in a range of interactions with industry. However, this
effect is not uniform across the different types of
interactions. While having tenure seems to facilitate
interactions with industry such as being contacted by a
private company, having served as a paid consultant, and
having placed students or post-docs on industry jobs, it had
no discernible effect on proactively initiating contacts with
a private company, working in a private company as an
owner, partner or employee, patenting, working on
technology transfer, and co-authoring papers with industry
personnel.
There is a possible underlying logic that can be detected
within these results. Specifically, it seems that academic
seniority is relevant, and facilitates, interactions where the
reputation of the scientist could plausibly be one of the
driving forces behind the interaction. For example, it
makes sense that senior (tenured) scientists who are already
established will be more likely to be contacted by private
companies, and more likely to be paid for their advice (paid
consulting). They are also more likely to have greater
access to students and the ability to support more students
and assist with their placement in industry jobs. While
seniority and reputation (as approximated by tenured
status) are important for these types of interactions,
tenured status showed to have no effect on being involved
in other types of interactions with industry, such as seeking
information from private companies, engaging in a
company as an owner or partner, working on a patent,
and co-authoring papers with industry colleagues. This
implies that the traditional academic reward system does
not necessarily have a uniform, direct deterrent effect on all
forms of interactions with industry. Instead, it may be the
case that the effect of tenure status reflects that scientific
credentials and seniority are relevant for some, but not all
types of interactions with industry.
4.7. Scientific values
As hypothesized, subscription to the norms of com-
munalism and disinterestedness negatively affects the
likelihood of interacting with industry. However, these
effects are not uniform, which implies that certain
interactions with industry do not necessarily conflict with
widespread scientific norms. Specifically, scientists who
believe that commercial considerations distract one from
doing good research are less likely to be contacted by
private companies, serve as paid consultants to firms, place
graduate students in industry jobs, patent, work on
commercializing technology and co-author papers with
industry personnel. In short, identification with the norm
of disinterestedness generally precludes scientists from
entering most interactions with industry, thus indicating
the presence of a cultural and/or motivational barrier that
may have direct effect on the behavior of some scientists.
The effect of subscribing to the norm of communalism
(approximated here by relative valuation of economic
rewards versus the utilization of one’s work in others’
research) is less pronounced. Specifically, while scientists
who value the dissemination of their work over economic
rewards are generally less likely to interact with industry,
this attitude affects negatively only two of the specific types
of interaction: serving as a paid consultant to a private
company and working with industry in entrepreneurial
capacity (e.g., as an owner, partner, or employee).
These results paint a somewhat complex picture of the
effect of this norm. Specifically, it is plausible that if
someone values the standing of their work within the
scientific community higher than any economic rewards,
they would be less likely to get involved in consulting
engagements, which although potentially very lucrative,
rarely involve ground breaking research. Such scientists
will also be less likely to become ‘‘academic entrepreneurs,’’
which essentially involves altering their career trajectory to
accommodate the pursuit of commercial opportunities
(Audretsch and Kayalar-Erdem, 2005). If a scientist is
more interested in the impact of their work than in the
possible economic rewards, then he would be less likely to
engage in such behaviors.
However, this set of values showed no effect on the other
types of interaction with industry, which is an important
topic for further research as this ‘‘lack of negative effect’’
implies that interest in scientific impact does not necessarily
conflict with all industrial interactions at all times.
For example, it may be the case that in the search for
new and interesting problems, even scientists who exhibit
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P. Craig Boardman, B.L. Ponomariov / Technovation 29 (2009) 142–153
indifference to economic incentives may be inclined to turn
to industry, for example as a source of new ideas and
challenges that merit research with potentially important
impact.
4.8. Gender
Gender affects several particular types of interactions
with industry. Specifically, male scientists are more likely to
have served as formal paid consultants, to have helped
place graduate students in industry jobs, to have acted in
entrepreneurial capacity (e.g., as owners or partners in a
company), and to have worked on commercializing
research with industry personnel.
It is unclear if these results are due to the lesser
propensity of women to engage in such interactions in
general, or if because these types of interactions are ones
that imply increased importance of experience, seniority,
and status (in which case the finding would not be
surprising given that women have been hired in academia
in increasing numbers only recently, and thus are less likely
to have attained the relevant markers of prestige and status
than men). However, at least one prior study supports the
former possibility. Thursby and Thursby (2005) report that
women are less likely to disclose inventions, even though
their publication productivity and profile does not differ
from their male counterparts’.
4.9. Age and minority status
Older scientists are less likely to have been approached
by private companies with requests for information, but
more likely to have worked with industry personnel on
patents and co-authored papers. These results imply mixed
effects for age. On the one hand, younger scientists—
socialized in an environment increasingly emphasizing
closer university–industry relations—may be more recep-
tive to such contacts and such receptivity may be
recognized by industrial partners. On the other hand, the
importance of including age in models of scientific
behaviors lays in the fact that it approximates the extent
to which scientists accommodate human and social capital
over the course of their careers that may be relevant in their
interactions with industry. As with tenured scientists, older
scientists have had more time to develop skills and to
produce work useful for industry, as well as to develop
networks that may include industry personnel (Link et al.,
2006). If so, our results tentatively identify industry-related
activities where such credentials and experiences may be
relevant: patenting and co-authoring papers with industry
personnel. These results are indirectly consistent with prior
study indicating that more successful and productive
scientists are also more likely to be successful entrepreneurs
(Zucker and Darby, 1996). Since the accumulation of such
intellectual capital consumes time and effort, our results
can be read as an indirect approximation of this process.
Our results are also consistent with a descriptive study of
151
European entrepreneurs which found that academic
entrepreneurs tend to be older (Klofsen and Jones-Evans,
2000).
White scientists are generally more likely to interact with
private companies, to be approached by firms with requests
for information, to have served as consultants, helped place
graduate students in industry jobs, and to have worked in
industry in entrepreneurial capacity (e.g., as an owner,
partner or employee). These results map closely with the
results on gender, which implies that there might be some
structural barriers for under-represented groups to parti-
cipate in entrepreneurial activities. Specifically, the types of
interactions where minority status and gender had effect
were interactions especially likely to depend on experience,
seniority and other human and social capital endowments.
If so, it may be the case that women and minorities are still
in a ‘‘catch-up’’ mode. Such a possibility should not be
overstated, as these data only imply that such scenario may
be occurring, but does not allow testing such a claim.
5. Discussion and conclusions
This paper proposed an exploratory assessment of the
effects of broad range of individual-level characteristics on
university scientists’ interactions with the private sector.
This assessment was motivated by existing studies that
have explored, often indirectly, the relationship between
particular dimensions of scientists’ roles or characteristics
and their interactions with industry. In contrast, the
current paper undertook a comparatively comprehensive
analysis of the individual determinants of university
scientists’ interactions with the private sector.
In spite of the primarily exploratory intent of this paper,
several of the findings are worth highlighting. Most
importantly, we find little evidence of conflict between
interactions with industry and more traditional academic
roles. On the contrary, we find positive relationship
between behaviors expected of university scientists—such
as conducting government-funded research and supporting
graduate students—and interactions with the private
sector. We also find that subscription to traditional
scientific norms is not necessarily at odds with pursuing
commercially relevant activities. Further, scientists af-
filiated with university research centers—which often focus
on applied and commercially relevant research—are more
likely to interact with the private sector, but not in an
entrepreneurial capacity.
Taken together, these results suggest a synergy between a
wide range of traditional academic activities and roles and
interactions with the private sector. This represents a
contribution relative to prior studies, e.g., ones examining
the link between productivity and commercialization
activities. The demonstrated link between productivity
and commercialization is plausible, but it tells only a
small part of the story by focusing on a single aspect of
scientific ability and behavior whereby one cannot discern
what particular endowments, capabilities, and/or related
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
152 P. Craig Boardman, B.L. Ponomariov / Technovation 29 (2009) 142–153
activities facilitate interactions with industry (in that all
such variables are likely strongly correlated with produc-
tivity yet may have different relative importance). Identify-
ing relationships between a wider set of scientific activities
allows for more granular delineation of drivers of certain
types of university–industry interactions at the individual
level.
There remains little understanding of which university
scientists interact with industry and, when they do interact,
what specific types of tasks and activities they perform. The
current study constitutes a modest, though nonetheless
informative, step towards understanding university re-
searchers’ interactions with private companies. The step is
modest because the data do not account explicitly for
incentives to interact with industry, which are difficult to
operationalize and measure once the discussion veers from
economic outputs like licenses. The step is informative
because the current study describes a process with here-
tofore unseen detail regarding ‘‘the who and the how’’ of
university–industry interaction. The various means with
which technology, knowledge, and know-how are trans-
ferred across sectors remain for the most part a black box,
limiting understanding and rendering policy choices
difficult to make. The next phase of research is to conduct
multiple, theory-driven inquiries focused on specific
individual-level attributes (e.g., center affiliation) that
correlate with particular types of industry interactions
(e.g., informal knowledge exchanges)—similar to extant
studies of university scientists’ technology licensing.
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