Abstract
The focus of our paper is to qualitatively explore the mission statements components of university TTOs using Pearce and David’s (Acad Manag Exec 1(2):109–115, 1987) eight components. Mission statements are the organization’s central defining purpose and focus. In essence an organizations’ raison d’etre. Given the growing importance of the role TTOs now play, understanding components of mission statements is timely, particularly during the first phase of TTO developments. To provide insights concerning these issues our study is set in the Republic of Ireland, which has one of the top performing university and public research organization technology transfer system within the European Union. Using Pearce and David (1987) well established eight mission statement components we analyzed seven Irish university TTO mission statements. We also conducted quantitative analysis on the number of mission statement components and selected variables. We found that university TTO mission statements focused primarily on two mission components—target customers and markets and principal services. From our quantitative analysis we found moderate positive correlations between patents granted and number of mission statement components. Furthermore we found there was a positive correlation between grants granted outside of Ireland and the number of mission components. Our results, albeit they are tempered by a small sample of data, have pertinent implications for TTOs.
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Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank Brendan Dolan for his research support for this paper. The authors wish to thank Al Link for his constructive comments and feedback that has help shaped this paper. The authors would like to acknowledge the funding support from the Irish Social Sciences Platform as part of the Programme for Research in Third Level Cycle 4 administered by the Higher Education Authority and co-funding from the European Regional Development Fund.
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Fitzgerald, C., Cunningham, J.A. Inside the university technology transfer office: mission statement analysis. J Technol Transf 41, 1235–1246 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10961-015-9419-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10961-015-9419-6
Keywords
- Mission
- Mission statements
- Mission components
- Key drivers
- Technology transfer offices
- Entrepreneurial university