Between scientific playground and industrial workbench

The focus of this article is on the impact of cultural influences in academic knowledge transfer (KT). This aspect of the KT process was studied at Dutch and German technical universities. The analysis shows that professional values and identities play an important role in academic KT. Administrators in university KT offices were found to be influenced by values such as efficiency and profitability, like their counterparts in the private industry. At the same time, the KT personnel in both countries shared traditional academic values with the academic staff. With this ability to understand the interests of both the private sector and the academics, KT personnel at universities have taken on a bridging role in mediating between the non-profit interests of academia and the profit interest of external parties. It is argued that, due to the increasingly complex legal and administrative processes involved in transferring knowledge to external partners, KT managers are adapting to a functional niche in modern academic organizations by fulfilling this important ‘bridging role’.