Bridging the Mutual Knowledge Gap: Coordination and the Commercialization of University Science

We examine why commercialization of inter-disciplinary research, especially from distant scientific domains, is different from inventions from specialized or proximate domains. We argue that anticipated coordination costs arising from the need to transfer technology to the licensee firms and from the need for the inventor team to work together to further develop the technology significantly impact commercialization outcomes. We use a sample of 3,776 university invention disclosures to test whether the variation, in types of experience of the scientists within a team, influences the likelihood that an invention will be licensed. We proffer evidence to support our hypotheses that the anticipated coordination costs influence whether an invention is licensed, and that specific forms of team experience attenuate such coordination costs. The implications of these findings for theories of coordination, innovation, and entrepreneurship are discussed.