Archive - Special Issue
CALL FOR PAPERS
Special Issue:
TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER IN INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP ECOSYSTEMS IN EMERGING ECONOMIES
Editorial Team
Editor-in-Chefe
Priscila Rezende da Costa, Universidade Nove de Julho, Brazil
Coeditor
Isabel Cristina Scafuto, Universidade Nove de Julho, Brazil
Scientific Editor
Marcos Rogério Mazieri, Universidade Nove de Julho, Brazil
Guest Editors
Herlandí de Souza Andrade, Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil.
Dante Benito Castro Solano, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico.
Jaime Bustos Gómez, Universidad de la Frontera, Chile.
Jose Enrique Arias, Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia.
Leandro Lepratte, Universidad Tecnológica Nacional, Argentina.
Ligia Maria Soto Urbina, Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica, Brazil.
María del Carmena Messina Scolaro, Universidad de la Republica, Uruguay.
Saurabh Verma, National Institute of Technology Silchar, India.
PURPOSE OF THE SPECIAL ISSUE
An innovation ecosystem, according Granstrand and Holgersson (2020), is the evolving set of actors, activities, and artifacts, and the institutions and relations, including complementary and substitute relations, that are important for the innovative performance of an actor or a population of actors. Among these actors, this special call for papers will focus research whose object of study is Technology Transfer Offices (TTO), Business Incubator/Accelerator (BI/A) and their interrelation with the productive sector, especially technology-based companies, aimed at promoting innovation.
The TTOs of the Scientific, Technological and Innovation Institutions (STII), including innovation HUBs, manage a portfolio with a large number of technologies that are appropriated and/or protected by the Intellectual Property (IP) regime. According to Tres and Ferreti (2015), IP can play an important role in the development of a nation. In fact, many of the technologies developed under the auspices of a STII may have high impact in the productive sector and, possibly, be applicable in more than one sector of the economy. These are known as “dual-use technologies”. According to Bahia and Sampaio (2015), a vigorous system for IP protection encourages invention and technological progress. However, a robust IP protection system is necessary but not sufficient condition to promote innovation. Protected technologies need to be transferred and transformed into new productive processes, products and market opportunities.
Commercialization of the technologies appropriated by the TTO under the IP regime in STIIs from emerging economies, and their subsequent transfer, is below the desired or expected benchmark for large and renowned STII, as can be seen, for example, on INPI (2020; 2018) and CORFO (2016) data. In other words, it seems that most of the developed and appropriated (IP protected) technologies have not become an innovation as they have not been transferred nor applied in the productive sector in order to improve the living conditions of society. This is not to say that STIIs do not generate innovation. On the contrary, many technologies are successfully generated and transferred. In general, STIIs develop several scientific or technological research projects together with other organizations. In these cases, technology transfer takes place under a contract or agreement. However, there is currently no formal criterion for measuring or quantifying and monitoring the TTs that are appropriated through industrial secrecy. Thus, it is important to define and manage indicators on TT in STIIs. To construct these indicators, it is necessary to be clear about the overall objective, be rigorous and transparent in the methodology to be applied, and beyond that, it is necessary to have a dynamic STTI innovation policy.
In managing STIIs’ innovation policy the TTOs should be proactive and strategic. For this to happen, according to Limongi França, Maccari e Costa (2019), Chagas Jr., Sales and Jesus (2017), Andrade et al. (2017), Silva et al. (2016), Vieira e Quadros (2016), Froehlich and Bitencourt (2015) and Panizzon et al. (2015), it is necessary to mobilize, adapt, renew, reconfigure or recreate resources and promote organizational changes in a STII. This involves leveraging dynamic capabilities of the said organization. Dynamic capabilities are a set of competencies in an organization which are useful for adapting to dynamic environments. Organizations seek to establish sets of processes that permit them to act on organization’s resources producing different operating approaches. Dynamic capabilities could be useful in generating the capacity for renewal of the TTO. Machado Junior, Mazzali and Palmisano (2015) indicate that organizations need to establish adequate organizational structures to meet the demand for managing innovation processes.
Recent academic literature associates efficient and effective management of IP and TT with the existence of a set of well-defined, structured and dynamic processes. However, the general panorama is that STIIs produce technologies, TTOs manage IP protection activities, but large-scale transfer of the protected technologies to the productive sector does not occur. The low rate of TT to the society could be related to the recognition made by the academic literature about the fact that, in general, these TTOs do not have well-defined processes for the management of IP, and for the commercialization and transfer of technology. Thus, it can be argued that they have activities for the protection of IP but not for its management, in a comprehensive and systemic way.
According to Koslosky, Speroni and Gauthier (2015), the innovation ecosystems that generate innovative businesses are normally derived from the synergic relationship between the environments that produce science and technology, such as STIIs, and the productive sector. Ecosystems whose actors maintain effective cooperation relationships and play a prominent role in local or regional development are a fertile soil for innovation. In theory, the relationships within the ecosystem foster implementation of the initiatives to protect, transfer and commercialize the results of research and contribute to the formation of technology-based companies. Thus, it is also important to study BI/A and technology-based companies, covering the concepts of organizational training and entrepreneurship, innovation ecosystem networks, effective cooperation relationships (e.g. value co-creation, sociotechnical co-production) and other theoretical lenses and approaches.
We want to stimulate, with this special call, works that answer, mainly the following question: how to increase the TT from STIIs to companies or start-ups?
It is important to deepen the understanding of the approaches, methods, techniques, mechanisms or processes for the strategic management of innovation and technology that may be applied in the TTOs, BI/A and technology-based companies to accelerate the technology transfer in emerging economies. We hope that the results of the research presented in the submitted papers will inform the outcome on how to increase the TT rate, result in promotion of innovation. Literature suggests that knowledge or technology may improve the competitive advantage of economic segments or sectors of the economy when the former become innovations (Andrade et al, 2016a, Andrade et al, 2016b, Barboza, 2011; Jungmann and Bonetti, 2010; Santos et al., 2009; Cruz, 2008; Santos and Amato Neto, 2008; Andrade, 2007; Tigre, 2006; Mattos and Guimarães, 2005; Lach and Schankerman, 2004). The competitive advantage may be translated into improved productivity or quality and reduced costs. Thus, efforts to create bridges for the TT generated by STIIs to be applied in the market may culminate into economic growth because, as stated by Schumpeter (1911; 1939), innovation is an important tool for promoting economic and social development, generating wealth and improving people's quality of life.
We invite the academic and scientific community to submit papers that answer the question posed and that present the best practices to create and increase organizational capacity of TTOs, BI / As and technology-based companies, to manage the innovation policy of STIIs, to promote TT and to promote de technological entrepreneurship.
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