Do Firms’ Efforts Matter? An Innovation Mechanism in Public Technology Commercialization

This article aims to understand the effect of firms’ application development activities when introducing new technologies from universities or public institutes on the success of commercialization and corporate growth. Technology itself does not guarantee corporate growth; instead, it is commercialization that contributes more to achieving a sustainable competitive edge, as it offers economic value. We collected samples on the commercialization performance of start-ups that adopted the technology of universities or public research institutes and measured the intensity of the firms’ application development activities as the gap between the technology readiness levels (TRLs) at the time of technology acquisition and the firms’ current TRL. Our findings show that the process of transferring technology to firms is mediated by the firms’ application development performance. Most notably, we first observed that firms’ investments in commercialization have no significant direct effect on commercialization success; instead, we found that this relationship is mediated by the TRL gap. This article suggests that it is necessary to consider the entire process—from the technology transfer to firms to successful commercialization—to form a mechanism under which universities and research institutes can create substantial additional value and allow their research to realize their full potential.