Personnel motivation in knowledge transfer offices: The role of university-level and organizational-level antecedents

Knowledge transfer offices (KTOs) have become key actors in economic growth, innovation, and social and technological progress. Accordingly, scholars have dedicated increasing attention to KTOs’ activities and performance. Surprisingly, these topics have mainly been addressed at the macro level through environmental and institutional variables, while scant attention has been given to the effect of micro- and behavioral dynamics on KTO outcomes. By considering four Italian KTOs, our paper aims to better understand the motivational aspects of KTO employees—and particularly the antecedents of such motivation. Focusing on self-determination theory (SDT), we link the three basic needs (relatedness, competence and autonomy) that explain KTO employees’ intrinsic motivation to specific university-level and organizational-level antecedents. With regard to the former, we show that university government plays a key role in satisfying the need for autonomy among KTO personnel, while KTO organizational antecedents are more important in addressing the needs for competence and relatedness.