Psychological factors influencing patent filing among faculty in Higher Educational Institutions in India

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to determine the psychological factors that influence patent filing among faculty in Indian Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs). Specifically, we examined the influence of four factors, namely creative personality traits, pro-social motives, attitude towards patenting and patenting intention, on patenting among faculty in Indian HEIs. We adopted questionnaire-based survey research for this study. Data for the study were obtained from faculty (N = 249) from well-known HEIs that provide a supportive patenting environment. We used the propensity score matching technique to match the data on the variable ‘patenting sensitization’ that resulted in a matched data set (N = 160) used for further analyses. We used the binary logistic regression analysis to analyse the data. We found that psychological factors have a significant positive effect on patent filing. Academic patentees were more unconventional. They had pro-social motivation and positive attitude towards patenting. Patenting intention did not have a significant relationship with patent filing.

KEYWORDS:

• Academic patentees
• personality traits
• pro-social motive
• attitudes towards patenting
• patenting intention

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Prof. James Fleck and the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Santhi Perumal

Santhi Perumal is Assistant Professor in the Institute of Management Technology Nagpur. Her research interests include Knowledge Management, Positive Psychology, CSR and Research Methods.

Shyam Sreekumaran Nair

Shyam Sreekumaran Nair is Assistant Professor in the Institute of Management Technology Nagpur. His research interests include Science & Technology Policy and Markets for Technology.