Despite the attention technology transfer offices (TTOs) have received in previous studies, the question of how they should recruit and train an appropriate mix of employees remains unanswered. In fact, surprisingly little is known about the ways in which TTOs’ employees affect technology transfer (TT) activities. This study helps to fill this gap by exploring how TT officers with specific capabilities (those that are research-oriented, marketing-oriented, and legal-oriented) affect the early and late stages of the technology transfer process. We argue that, throughout that process, the different kinds of capabilities have specific roles and importance in TT outcomes. Our results suggest that employees with research-oriented capabilities positively affect the number of both invention disclosures and licensing agreements concluded by universities. In contrast, we find that TTO professionals with marketing-oriented capabilities have a positive effect on licensing, but no influence on the number of disclosures. Finally, TTO staff with legal-oriented capabilities appear to have no effect on either the number of invention disclosures or licenses concluded. In addition to contributing to the incipient literature on the impact of TTO employees, we believe that these findings have the potential to help university managers strategically develop TTO staff aiming at specific outcomes.

尽管技术转让办公室（TTO）在先前的研究中受到了关注，但他们应如何招募和培训合适的员工组合的问题仍未得到解答。实际上，关于TTO员工影响技术转让（TT）活动的方式知之甚少。这项研究通过探索具有特定能力的TT人员（那些以研究为导向，以市场为导向和以法律为导向的能力）如何影响技术转让过程的早期和晚期来帮助填补这一空白。我们认为，在整个过程中，不同类型的功能在TT结果中具有特定的作用和重要性。我们的结果表明，具有研究导向能力的员工对大学所达成的发明公开和许可协议的数量产生积极影响。相反，我们发现具有市场导向能力的TTO专业人员对许可产生积极影响，但对公开数量却没有影响。最后，具有法律导向能力的技术转让办公室工作人员似乎对发明披露的数量或所获得的许可均没有影响。我们相信，除了对有关TTO员工影响的早期文献做出贡献之外，我们相信这些发现还可以帮助大学管理人员针对特定成果，战略性地培养TTO员工。