External organizational factors influencing commercialization of research results

Commercialization of university research results is a complex activity and a chain completion of ideas into technology, leading to wealth’s creation, entrepreneurship and financial independence of the universities. The purpose of this article was to determine and describe effective external organizational factors in the commercialization of research results and explain the relationship among these factors. A mixed method was used to collect data and information for this research. The population included senior administrators, research and technology administrators and faculty members of Islamic Azad University (Science and Research Branch), organizations’ research and technology managers who were contract party with the university, and experts in the subject matter. Purposeful sampling and random stratified sampling methods were used for qualitative and quantitative parts respectively. The research instruments used for data collection were researcher made questionnaire and semi-structural interviews. To determine the validity of the measuring instrument, content validity and viewpoints of six experts and scholars were used. The reliability of questionnaire was determined by calculating the Cronbach's alpha coefficient (0.9641). Qualitative information generated from interviews were coded and analyzed, and t-Test, ANOVA, Friedman and Confirmatory Factor Analysis were used to analyze the quantitative data. Results showed that external organizational factors such as government forces, economic forces, educational system, macro laws and regulations, technological advances, competitors and competitiveness, customer oriented, and other factors are effective in commercialization of research results (p < 01/0). Results also revealed that most factors have significant relationships with each other.