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A review of qualitative case methods trends and themes used in technology transfer research

Cunningham, James A.
; 
Menter, Matthias
; 
Young, Chris
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Publication Date
2016-08-25
Keywords
technology transfer, case method, case study, qualitative, research methods, data collection, cases, commercialization, academic entrepreneurship, research-and-development, total-innovation-management, bayh-dole act, transfer offices, principal investigators, entrepreneurship research, transfer organizations, operations management, scientific-knowledge, information-systems
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Article
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Citation
Cunningham, James A. Menter, Matthias; Young, Chris (2016). A review of qualitative case methods trends and themes used in technology transfer research. The Journal of Technology Transfer 42 (4), 923-956
Abstract
The focus of this paper is to review the qualitative case methods that have been used in technology transfer research over the last 20 years from 1996 to 2015. Case methods allow for more in-depth analyses and provide the opportunity to place research into a certain context due to the selection of e.g. specific sectors, institutions, countries, etc. Using a systematic literature review of five of the top journals in the field of technology transfer research, namely Journal of Technology Transfer, Research Policy, Science and Public Policy, R&D Management and Technovation, it yielded 107 articles using the search terms: "Technology Transfer'' AND ("Case Study'' OR "Case Method'' OR "Qualitative''). Our findings indicate a clustering of themes using qualitative case methods around technology transfer mechanisms and TTOs, academic entrepreneurship, university-industry collaboration, commercialization as well as R&D and firm knowledge transfer. We also identify trends in case method technology transfer research with respect to authorship, location of papers, sectoral contexts, data collection, numbers of cases and data analysis software. We conclude our paper discussing the implications of trends and themes and suggest that researchers need to reflect on used terminology and their utilization and postulate a need for more plurality of data collection methods.
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Publisher
Springer Nature
Publisher DOI
10.1007/s10961-016-9491-6
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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Ireland
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Externally hosted open access publications with University of Galway authors (2)