The organization of research activities in industry and academia : implications for the commercialization of university research

This dissertation is composed of three essays. In the first essay, I build a model of the choice and timing of entry into commercial activities by an academic research team, and analyze the returns and costs of these activities. I compare the behavior and performance of the academic team to an industrial research team. The two teams are assumed to differ in their objectives, governance modes, and incentive systems. I show that, while in some cases academic scientists are more reluctant to commercialize research, in other cases they may commercialize faster than profit-seeking firms would - and perform less basic research. Academic and non-academic scientists also select different projects, and this may explain the good performance of 'academic entrepreneurs' found in several empirical studies. In the light of these results, I interpret the mixed evidence on the success of, and the arguments in favor and against, the involvement of universities into business-related research activities. In the second essay, I define a model of a firm's choice of whether to conduct research in-house or to outsource it to academic research teams.