Desempeño de las oficinas de transferencia universitarias como intermediarias para la transferencia de conocimiento : percepción del investigador

The contemporary university is a combination of teaching, research and business interests that offers innovative solutions through knowledge and technology transfer mechanisms (KTT) and enhances the links with the industrial sector. Nevertheless, for this process to be successful there is an urgent need for effective KTT mechanism. In this context, the creation of technology transfer offices (TTO) as intermediary units becomes paramount for the provision of R&D services. Another relevant aspect linked to KTT activities is the motivation of the researchers. Despite the existing literature acknowledges the role of motivations as an important factor to better understand the researcher's performance, little is known about their real effect. Therefore, an important question remains unanswered: Which factors influence researcher to get involved in KTT activities? This interrogate constitutes the research question of this thesis. In order to respond to this question, three objectives are proposed. First, based on the existing literature, a scale is designed and validated to measure the factors that influence the willingness of researchers to involve in KTT activities. Second, using structural equation modeling the scale is applied to the specific case of R&D contracts. Finally, a comparative qualitative analysis is conducted to test in order to investigate the extent to which the quality of the services provided by KTTs influence on researchers¿ willingness to involved in KTT activities. The measure of performance is the number of patents granted. The empirical application considers researchers from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) and the Universidad Nacional de Colombia (UNAL). The results materialize in the form of a scale with five dimensions: attitude towards KTT, expected contribution, promotion incentives, regulation, and university culture and services to promote KTT activities. Among these factors, although the existence of favorable regulations seems to be a determinant factor for the establishment of R&D contracts, intrinsic motivations is the factor with the greatest impact, and particularly the motivations that refer to the expected contribution. Concerning the services offered by TTOs, five dimensions are identified: reliability of the service, infrastructure, staff, regulations, culture of innovation and entrepreneurship. The analysis of the results highlights that there are several configurations that explain the outcome (patents). L