Tesfaye Hailu Gebrekidan, Shepherd Dhliwayo, Abdella Kosa Chebo
Abstract
While Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are expected to transform their scientific innovation towards developing human capital and diffuse technologies to businesses, this is not the case in many developing countries’ small business sector. The aim of this study was to test the effect of academia-industry linkage (AIL) on technology transfer (TT) through human capital (HC) as well as the related institutional barriers (IB). To meet this objective data were collected using a questionnaire from 382 small manufacturing enterprises in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. A qualitative approach as well as descriptive and causal research designs were employed. The finding of the study shows that the academia-industry linkage, can effect technology transfer both directly and indirectly through human capital. Institutional barriers were found to not significantly moderate the effect of academia-industry linkage on technology transfer, while it conditionally moderates the relationship. Given these findings, future researchers are expected to test the role of other variables such as environmental barriers and internal institutional factors on technology transfer in a longitudinal study.