Browsing by Author "Jansen van Rensburg, Merten Secundus"

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    Effective knowledge dissemination from universities: an evaluation of technology transfer offices and the environments in which they operate
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2019-12) Jansen van Rensburg, Merten Secundus; Bam, Wouter; Schutte, C. S. L.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Engineering. Dept. of Industrial Engineering.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Measures of the research that is generated by universities are commonly used to determine the subsidies that governments pay to universities. Universities can also develop research into technologies that can be sold to industry, in order to supplement the income from government subsidies and student fees. In some cases, researchers at universities have to make trade-off decisions regarding whether to focus on publishing the research (to possibly increase government subsidies) or to focus on research that can be sold to industry. Both of these foci may be legitimate ways of disseminating the research done at universities. The purpose of this study is to develop a framework that supports the evaluation of the knowledge dissemination determinants at universities, with a focus on university TTOs and the environments in which they operate. The framework identifies the concepts relevant to the operation of TTOs that affect knowledge dissemination. The concepts can be grouped into the themes of: (1) Goals of the University, (2) Intellectual Capital, (3) IPR, (4) Funding, (5) Incentives, (6) Info-Culture, (7) Info-Structure, (8) Infrastructure and finally (9) Dissemination. Two primary case studies, Stellenbosch University and KU Leuven, are conducted using the framework. Secondary case studies are selected to compare the primary case studies to. These secondary case studies include: (1) universities that are located in similar environments, and (2) universities that are similarly ranked, but operate in different environments. The aim is to identify factors and behaviours that increase the effectiveness of knowledge dissemination from universities in these different environments. This study thus makes two contributions. Firstly, it presents a framework that can be used to evaluate knowledge dissemination determinants from universities. Secondly, it uses this framework to identify various patterns of these determinants and the observed performance related to these determinants in various cases. This adds to the growing literature exploring the determinants of the knowledge dissemination related performance of university.