James J. Chrisman, Mississippi State University

Hanqing (Chevy) Fang, Missouri University of Science and Technology

Silvio Vismara, University of Bergamo

Zhenyu Wu, University of Manitoba

This special issue examines how knowledge and technology transfer operate differently across diverse organizational forms, moving beyond the assumption that transfer follows a single institutional model. The call brings together fragmented literature on intellectual property, open innovation, family businesses, and cooperative structures to develop an integrated framework for understanding ownership's role in shaping what knowledge is transferred, retained, or commercialized.

The framework organizes ownership forms along three dimensions: access (who obtains knowledge and on what terms), appropriation (who captures economic returns), and governance (who decides how knowledge is used and protected). These dimensions help explain why knowledge flows differently through universities, private firms, state-owned enterprises, cooperatives, and other organizational structures.

Appel publié par The Journal of Technology Transfer. Lire l'appel complet sur le site de l'éditeur. Fiche de l'appel sur kerostig.

Potential topics

• Locating and transitioning ownership forms: how family firms, employee-owned firms, SOEs, cooperatives, and platform cooperatives differ in what they transfer and to whom, and how transfer changes as firms professionalize, corporatize, or adopt foundation governance.
• Hybrid and intermediate arrangements: dual-class structures, stakeholder boards, patent pools, and benefit-corporation statutes, and when such hybrids are stable.
• University and public research transfer: how technology transfer offices, consortia, and open science initiatives allocate rights, and how policy reforms shift those allocations.
• AI, data, and platforms: how the three dimensions operate where the asset itself blurs conventional boundaries between use, capture, and control.
• Rights-based theory, measurement, and policy: work that formalizes the framework, specifies trade-offs, or informs organizational and policy design.

Timeline

• September 30, 2027: Full paper submission deadline