Knowledge Management Within the University Technology Transfer Process

The last two decades has seen increased interest in the universities role in the economy. Traditionally universities' primary mission was to engage in teaching, research and disseminate knowledge across both academic and student communities (O'Shea et al., 2005). They also provided highly educated and qualified personnel to industry. However more recently there has been a focus on transferring and commercialising knowledge within universities. Increasingly universities are being recognised as an important source of new knowledge especially in the areas of science and technology (Sharma et al, 2006). This has led to increased interest on technology transfer (TT) from universities to industry as an economic development strategy (Etzkowitz, 2003; Fritsch and Slavtchev, 2007). The aim of this study is to identify the key knowledge management (KM) activities that exist within the TT process of a single University case study to identify areas which could be improved resulting in an increased number of patents and spin off companies. This paper will begin by identifying the University technology transfer (UTT) stages followed by a discussion of KM through an absorptive capacity (AC) lens.