Knowledge and innovation has a direct impact on an economy, especially in fast- growing new startup companies. Knowledge workers are the key towards gaining competitive advantage for innovative organizations (Gonzalez-Perez & Leonard, 2013). Factors such as globalization, along with other factors, have fundamentally changed the relationship between industry and universities.

This is part of a general trend towards the rapid development of knowledge markets. Currently, national policies are focused on the relation between industry players and university. The aim is to facilitate the improvement of entrepreneurship in fast-growing industries (The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 2002). Hence, universities are considered as important actors in the knowledge-based economy. And the commercialization of research in universities, the innovations that originate from the research and development are considered as important factors for the economic stability of countries (Arora, 2003). Innovation often results in entrepreneurship as new ventures are created (Khajeheian, 2013) and by allowing firms to survive and compete in turbulent markets (Khajeheian, 2016a,b). Innovation also emanates from knowledge and creativity expected to be fostered in universities. The change in the universities’ role from a knowledge producer to an entity that commercializes knowledge, has led to an increase in innovative activities in the past two decades. But despite the importance of innovation; little attention has been paid to the successful commercialization of university research in developing countries especially in Iran (Zarea and Salamzadeh, 2012; Guerrero, Urbano, and Salamzadeh, 2014, 2015). With the importance of commercializing research that emanates from universities, and the fact that the selection of a commercialization strategy is the heart of developing innovations, commercialization determines the path through which organizations gains revenue and profit for the products and innovation (Servo, 1998). Therefore, paying attention to the mode of selecting a strategy with its correct mechanism is important for strategic planning in universities.

Thus, this study provides a comprehensive evaluation of commercialization strategies. The aim is to provide a correct answer to the question, ‘what is the appropriate strategy for the commercialization of academic studies in universities and higher educational institutions in Iran?’

Universities are increasingly becoming entrepreneurs in most developed countries (Moray and Clarysse, 2004; Siegel, 2006). They are considered as the source and origin of the development of technologies which can be useful for various economic activities (Mowery et al., 2001; Rosenberg and Nelson, 1994). Some researchers believe that universities have a new role in the commercialization of researches’ results. And as the significance of a knowledge-based innovation in the development of industrial organizations increases every day, universities can play greater role in the development of societal innovations (Rasmussen, Moen and Gulbrandsen, 2006). Universities become involved in technology transfer activities for various reasons. The reasons include, recruitment and retention of university professors, the development of a stronger relation between the industry and the university, strengthening the credibility of the university and, for economic, social benefits or regional economics (SBIR Program Reauthorization Act available at http://sbir. gov/about/about-sbir). Overall, the increase in commercialization has led towards the opening of a new gateway to the privatization of scientific joint-cooperation and scientific advances (Chang, Yang and Chen, 2009).

Many researchers have attempted to define the concept of commercialization. For instance, Urabe (1988) defined it as the creation of new idea and its implementation as a product, service, or a new process which leads to the dynamic growth of the national economy thereby increasing the employment rates and net profit of innovative companies. Chang et al., (2009) presents a practical definition for the commercialization of university research. The define commercialization as faculty memberswhoseektoexploittheirresearchresultsbyreceivingpatentrights, licensing and participating in the ownership of spin-off companies. Also, Siegel et al., (2003a) and Bandarian (2007) defined commercialization as the conversion or transmission of technology towards a profitable field. The commercialization of academic research and technology transfer are synonymous in many research contexts (RAND Corporation, 2003; Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM), 2010; Chang et al., 2009). In general, technology transfer implies transferring ideas, methods or research results in an environment which results in a product, service or process in any way (RAND Corporation, 2003). Technology transfer is the oftcial transfer of new discoveries and innovations resulting from scientific research that are carried out by non-profit research institutes and universities with the commercial sectors for public benefits (AUTM, 2003). Technology transfer from university to industry is the result of interaction between different actors and organizations such as executives of university, university researchers, research groups, public or private companies, technology transfer oftces, venture investors and other financial actors and different actors in the private sector (Goktepe, 2008). Finally, Kasch and Dowling (2008) mention that technology transfer is a comprehensive term which covers the mechanisms of information transfer to the outside borders and its effective transmission to the acceptor. Commercialization strategy also refers to a series of operations faced by an organization for transferring its product or technology to the market (Servo, 1998; Gans and Stern, 2003).

Technology takeover process and its distribution is an important factor that accelerates growth through productivity factor and the accumulation of capital and promotion of economic and social development in developing economies (Shapira and Wang, 2009; Siegel and Wright, 2015). This process is influenced by numerous external factors. The notable economic factors are the governmental policies and laws, such as Bayh-Dole Actin America (Friedman and Silberman, 2003). Incentive systems, university status, location, culture, intermediary institutions, focus, experience and defined identity, the role of the Scientific Board and nature of the technology which will be commercialized are also internal factors of commercialization (Rothaermel, Agung, and Jiang, 2006).

Universities have shown a strong desire to commercialize knowledge under economic pressure.There is the tendency for universities to become independent by building up their local budgets thus, commercialization has become a new gateway for the privatization of scientific progress (MIT, 2015 Castrogiovanni et al., 2016). The creation and transmission of knowledge by universities have been intensified under economic pressure and tighter public budgets (Brachos et al., 2007; Guzak and Rasheed, 2014). However, evidences show that universities are faced with problems in commercializing successful. One of the main challenges comes from the improper selection of a commercialization strategy. Therefore, the Grant framework was used in this study in the form of mixed exploratory study to identify and develop competitive strategies forcommercialization. Thus, information was collected via a qualitative case study and a quantitative descriptive-survey method (Kasch and Dowling, 2008).

Commercialization typically follows one of three primary strategic paths: (1) sale or licensing of Intellectual Property, (2) external development focused on acquisition, (3) internal development of a startup aimed at an initial public offering (IPO), or a mix of these strategies (Knockaert, Vandenbroucke and Huyghe, 2012; Siegel and Wright, 2015; Gittelman 2006). If the inventor does not want to be involved in the commercialization process, he/she can sell the rights to the innovation to another company (Siegel and Wright, 2015). The inventor may choose to offer the company technical assistance in exchange for a set cost, royalties, or other forms of agreement. Intellectual Property can also be licensed if the inventor wants to maintain ownership of the patent(s) but does not have the commitment or time to be involved in the company (Knockaert, Vandenbroucke and Huyghe, 2012). Although the terms of a licensing agreement vary for each technology, firm, and environment, the defining feature of this arrangement is that both parties remain independent while cooperating in commercialization of the technology (Gans and Stern, 2003).

Standard license agreements include negotiated financial terms such as annual fees, a royalty on product sales, reimbursement of patent costs, and possibly a minority share of equity in the startup (MIT, 2015). Additionally, license agreements include nonfinancial terms such as the degree of exclusivity (e.g., nonexclusive, exclusive, or restricted by field of use), reservations of the rights for the federal government, and performance (diligence) requirements for having the capability to develop the technology (Rutherford and Holt, 2007; González-Pernía, Kuechle, and Peña-Legazkue, 2013). Another strategy of commercialization is by developing the startup externally with the goal of eventually being acquired by another company (Pettersson and Götsén, 2016; Yetisen et al., 2015). In this strategy, the innovator relinquishes the independent operation of the startup and gives the rights to commercialization and control of the technology to a third party (Brooks, Heffner and Henderson, 2014; Yetisen et al., 2015). In internal development, the innovator must be prepared to commit up to 90% of his/her available assets. The innovator must be able to sustain the development effort through the life cycle of the business with financial returns potentially only being realized after over 5 or more years (Yetisen et al., 2015). However, most startups do not have the available funding to bring the product to the inflection point, where adding a small amount of time and resources results in a significant improvement in performance (Barnes, Pashby, and Gibbons, 2002; Yetisen et al., 2015). Contractual relationships often develop at this stage. i Joint ventures and strategic alliances, and outsourcing may be used to gain access to additional assets (Yetisen et al., 2015). The commercialization strategy of a company is affected primarily by the company’s vision, business philosophy, the stage of technological development, market risk, competitive activities and window of opportunity (Plewa, 2005). Ultimately, the optimal commercialization strategy depends on the innovator’s background and willingness to invest time and resources to have an independent company and the desire to maximize the commercial availability of the innovation (NIST, 1999).

The main obstacles identified by researchers in the case of research commercialization are disagreements between academics who possess knowledge commercial transmission (Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff, 2000), bureaucracy , lack of flexibility of university management system (Samsom and Gurdon, 1993), lack of freedom of professors to participate in business activities (Plewa, 2005), cultural difference between industrial activists and academic life (Ndonzuau, Pirnay, and Surlemont., 2002), the lack of motivation for the university to commercialize (Debackere and Veugelers, 2005) weak laws protecting intellectual property, university dependence on governmental budgets, lack of identification of the needs and priorities of the business sector by university, different resources for industry activists and academics, lack of financial support for researchers by the university to exploit the knowledge generated by them, insuftcient resources dedicated by university to technology transfer, insuftcient share for professors (researchers) from the commercialization effort (Ndonzuau et al., 2002; Samsom and Gurdon, 1993).

The background of research related to the commercialization of researches has expanded with the increase in patenting, licensing, corporate venturing, joint venturing business and strategic alliances (Walter, Lechner and Kellermanns, 2008). In the book entitled “Technology Transfer of Federally Funded R & D”, Rand Corporation (2003) introduced seven main strategies of technology transfer. These includes licensing, cooperative activities, technical assistance, reimbursable work for nonfederal partner, exchange program, collegial interchange, publications and conferences and use of facilities. Link, Siegel and Bozeman (2007) divided transfer strategies into licensing agreements, joint research ventures, startups and academic companies in other classification. Universities are satisfied from this process because the oftcial transfer of technology can create more revenue and relationships with external stakeholders as well as promote regional economic growth and development (Kelley et al., 2005). Several different strategies can be used to transfer research from universities to industry. These include licensing of university inventions, creation of university spin off companies, contracting with industry to conduct research, counseling university professors to industry and publishing scientific research results in scientific journals, exchange programs, joint cooperation in research and development, joint development agreements, research parks, science parks, technology parks or incubators (Rogers, Takegami and Yin, 2001). Goktepe (2008) also divided commercialization strategies into two categories. These includes general and special strategies. Special strategies include patenting and giving their license to the companies and the formation of university spin off companies. The general strategies include, attending conferences, seminars and workshops, joint supervision of graduate students and doctoral theses, employment of university graduates in the industrial sector, consultation of university professors in industry sector, working of university professors in the industrial sector, joint research laboratory with industry sector, agreements of joint research and development projects, development of joint technology by formal agreements of cooperation with industry sector and mobility of university professors between industry and university.

Universities have other strategies for commercial transmission of knowledge in addition to commercialize-able knowledge production and qualified scientists, such as attracting talented people to the local economy and cooperation with local industries through the provision of formal and informal technical supports (Bramwell and Wolf, 2008). Rogers et al., (2001) consider five different strategies of technology transfer from universities. This includes the creation of spin-off companies, licensing, meetings, papers and other publications as well as joint agreements on research and development. Also, having shares in a company, in return for providing the rights to use the intellectual property of universities, is an emerging strategy and is a good option for many universities. Goldfarb and Henrekson (2003) focuses on two groups of strategies. The first group includes three mechanisms which are generally used in a project with commercial value. They are: sponsored research, consulting (including group activities) and starting a new firm. The second group includes three possible mechanisms for compensation of inventor’s services which are salaries, royalties and equity. Reamer, Icerman and Youtie (2003) explained five paths of collaborative research and development, licensing or sale of intellectual property, academic companies, technical advice, information exchange and hiring skilled personnel for knowledge transmission in complex environments. Nilsson, Rickne and Bengtsson (2009) classified the knowledge transfer strategies into eight categories of publications and conferences, patents, licenses, academic company, research with funding, informal or pre-formal discussions, common personnel and exchange of employees.

Increasing focus on the commercialization of university research has led to the development of efforts which promote research transfer activities. Some measures are formal while others are informal (Franklin, Wright and Lockett, 2001). Specifically, commercialization strategies of research can be divided into formal and informal mechanisms. The oftcial commercialization strategies are licensing, university patents, the formation of new companies or university spin off companies. The informal strategies incudes consulting for industry players by university professors (Siegel et al., 2004). An informal mechanism for technology transfer involves creating facilitating tool for the flow of knowledge. But this is carried out through informal communication processes, such as technical assistance, consultation and cooperation on research (Link, Siegel and Bozeman, 2007) Cohen, Nelson and Walsh (2000) divided the informal mechanisms of commercialization into three categories. These includes the contribution to the transfer or commercialization of technology, participation in joint papers and consultation. Bercovitz and Feldmann (2006) categorized and presented formal and informal mechanisms of interaction of academic technology transfer in the form of Table (1).

Table 1:

Source: Bercovitz and Feldmann, 2006.

Studies regarding the density, clustering and boundary spanning imply that joint venture businesses, alliances and distribution companies are useful strategies for technology transfer between companies and non-profit organizations (Siegel, Waldman and Link, 2003b) and licensing agreements between universities and private companies are the most important channel for the commercialization of the university’s intellectual property (Kelly, 2004). However, the creation of new venture businesses founded by university researchers have been beneficial via technology transfer in the last two decades (Bercovitz et al., 2001; Shane, 2002; Siegel, Veugelers, and Wright, 2007). Intellectual property licensing and spin-off companies have been considered as key contributions in the creation of new technology-based companies (Feldman, Link, and Siegel, 2002).

The analytical structure of our study is illustrated in Figure 1. We have reviewed some factors in literature and used fuzzy set theory to evaluate them. We collected a total number of 32 internal and external factors from previously-conducted researches (Figure 3). For collecting the data, we used fuzzy questionnaire that has 36 key internal and external factors extracted from literature. Questionnaire was created and distributed among relevant experts to elicit their opinions and suggestions about factors. EXPERTCHOICE software was used to analyze data from questionnaire. Due to the limitation in time and distance with respect to conducting interviews, and our main idea being the unification of the FAHP with SWOT, the approach was now to systematically extract strategies from the Internal-Eternal matrix and rank strategies commensurable to their weightiness. To create a SWOT-FAHP based strategic management model, we designed the following four-phase model: the building of the initial model; the confirmation of factors, the running of a ranking model through FAHP and extract strategies.

Figure 1:

Based on the literature review and interview with academic experts, we developed the internal and external environment factors as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2

After that, SWOT analysis is carried out and matrix is structured (Table 10). The SWOT framework is a tool for auditing an organization and its environment. The concept of determining strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities in Fig. 3 is the fundamental idea behind the SWOT Analysis Matrix. In Table 3 is an assessment of the appropriate strategies for the commercialization of knowledge in universities. They are separated into four categories according to experts which are: Strengths Opportunities (SO) strategies that use strength to take advantages of opportunities, Threats-Strengths (ST) strategies that use strength to avoid threats, Opportunities- Weaknesses (WO) strategies that overcome weakness by taking advantage of opportunities and Threats- Weaknesses (WT) strategies that minimize weakness and avoid threats.

Table 3

Source: Authors.

Based on the SWOT analysis, the hierarchical structure of the SWOT matrix to develop best strategies for commercialization can be represented as found below: Figure 3.

Figure 3

In the following stage, the weights of each criteria and sub-criteria are calculated using fuzzy-AHP. According to their preferences, the averaged pairwise comparison of the criteria is represented in Table 4. Due to the limitation of space and the similarity of the other calculations for each comparison matrix, we only provide the evaluation matrices of strengths factors as mentioned in Tables 4 to 7.

Table 4

Based on step 4, the geometric means of fuzzy comparison values of all criteria are shown in Table 5. In addition, the total values and the reverse values are also presented. In the last row of Table 5, since the fuzzy triangular number should be in increasing order, the order of the numbers is changed.

Table 5

In the fifth step, the fuzzy weight of each criteria () is found with the help of Eq. 5. Hence the relative fuzzy weights of each criterion are given in Table 6;

Table 6

In the sixth step, the relative non-fuzzy weight of each criterion (Mi) is calculated by taking the average of fuzzy numbers for each criterion. In the seventh step, by using non fuzzy Mi’s, the normalized weights of each criterion are calculated and tabulated in Table 7.

Table 7

In Table 8 to 10, we presented averaged and normalized relative weights of Threats, Weaknesses, and Opportunities criteria as well as SWOT groups.

Table 8

Table 9

Table 10

Finally, the overall priority scores of the SWOT factors are calculated. Overall priorities are shown in Table 11. The FAHP analysis results indicate that earned revenue from providing expert advice and technical knowledge to executive agencies and existence of experienced specialists in universities are the most important issues when considering the commercialization of a universities internal and external environment.

Table 11

According to Table 3, SO, ST, WO and WT, strategies that minimize weakness and avoid threats strategies were extracted based on the competitive advantage and capabilities of commercialization of academic research. According to this table, academic firms and joint laboratory are examples of the SO strategies. The emphasis on chance as a strategy means that when there are many opportunities and strengths, all chances are seen as a potential strategy. This is because the institution or university can achieve the opportunity based on the competitive advantages. Academic institutions have positioned themselves to serve the industry through consulting, licensing, and university spin-offs. The awareness of commercialization strategies can help academics to eftciently transfer their inventions to the market to achieve the maximum value. Universities are incentivized by the maximization of impact of the research results. Firms that use this knowledge, on the other hand, are typically driven by maximization of profit and commercial measures (Landry, Amara and Ouimet, 2007). Technology entrepreneurs must formulate and implement a commercialization strategy that determines the ultimate performance of the business. Optimization of commercialization strategies can enable the inventors and academic institutions to extract the maximum value from inventions and know-how (Yetisen et al., 2015). Emphasis on appropriate speed with conditions and environment to promote commercialization are suitable at the time of using this strategy. Diversification strategy refers to expanded commercialization activities. That is why the tendency is to engage university in the development of their activities. Some of the strategies related to this field include the creation of research parks, growth centers and technology transfer centers.

According to IE Matrix, a university should pursue strategies focused on corporate venture, contracting with industry to conduct research, academic start-ups, strategic alliances, recruiting skilled personnel for knowledge transfer in complex environments, joint technology development by formal co-operation agreements with the industry sector and joint research laboratories with industry sector. The literature review shows that various researchers expressed different strategies for commercialization of knowledge in university. Of course, some researchers have expressed shared items. These strategies changed based on sources, competitive advantages and capabilities of university. The performance of each strategy will be different in different environments. The coercion of labor did not only lead to reduced productivity, and competitiveness; but also its moral and political implications have economic consequences, which are exercised via market forces (Velez-Ocampo; Herrera-Cano, and Gonzalez-Perez, 2016). Scholars agree on the importance of organizations having employees that are adept team players with experience in accomplishing effective virtual projects that require online interaction, managing the dislocation of geographic- and time-based boundaries (Gonzalez- Perez et al., 2014). It is suggested that they pay more attention to the resources, competitive advantages and capabilities of the organization when choosing university strategies and strategies by higher education institutions with the aim of commercializing academic research. This is because choosing a commercialization strategy for research within a university research includes partnerships with industry players in the development of products and services. It also involves providing advisory services, meetings with industry personnel, the creation of an economy based on the university’s technology transfer and joint research. These are simple to implement but have mission complexities in different organizations. And selection of all of these strategies will not express the speed, accuracy or tendency towards commercialization.