Dissidents of the Ivory Tower: Why academic activate their social capital with industry

The evidence that economic growth is dependent on university-industry interactions has boosted the number of national and international policies oriented towards promoting such interactions. The design of effective policies and incentive systems, in turn, requires a good understanding of why academics activate their social capital with industry at all. The objective of this research was to develop a comprehensive but parsimonious model that would provide insight into the key determinants of academics’ social capital activation with industry, and to understand and explain the way these factors lead to the actual behavior. We first examined the role of specific motives in forming the general motivation of academics to activate their social capital with industry. We also examined the effects of dispositional factors (i.e., perceived social influence, motivation and perceived ability) and positional factors (i.e., hierarchical position, scientific orientation, scientific domain) on social capital activation. Finally, we explored the moderating and mediating roles of the trigger in the relationship between passive social capital and social capital activation. The results show that decisions academics face with regard to interaction with industry are primarily determined by their experience in the past. Policies building on the notion of prior experience need to aim at creating opportunities for newcomers to get involved in projects with industry at early stages of their academic career.