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Critical Success Factors for Malaysian SMEs and Large Companies in Commercializing Universities’ R&D Outputs

Asian Journal of Innovation and Policy / Asian Journal of Innovation and Policy, (P)2287-1608; (E)2287-1616
2019, v.8 no.3, pp.362-377
https://doi.org/10.7545/ajip.2019.8.3.362
Kok Chian Tam (International University of Malaya-Wales)
Aik Lee Chong (International University of Malaya-Wales)
Angelina Seow Voon Yee (University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus)
Joel Kah Marn Tham (International University of Malaya-Wales)
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Abstract

Commercializing universities’ R&D outputs is a major management challenge and there are limited studies to describe this phenomenon from the perspective of companies’ management. Experiences of six small and medium size and four large companies’ management’s respondents are gathered through semi-structured face-to-face interviews. Twelve critical success factors revealed by the respondents, namely R&D product and market readiness, good partnership with university, researcher’s motivationand commitment, availability of resources, government support and motivation, control and ownership of intellectual property rights, university’s management support, entrepreneurial culture in the university, an open communication and trusting relationship, researchers’ skills, a risk taking attitude, and existence of performance measures as important to commercialize the universities’ R&D outputs in Malaysia. The different views from the management of small and medium size, and large companies are also discussed in this study.

keywords
Critical success factors, commercialization of universities’ R&D, SMEs, large companies

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