Conditioning factors of knowledge transfer and commercialisation in the context of post-socialist economies: The case of Belarusian higher education institutions

The transformation of knowledge and technology originated from higher education institutions (HEIs) into valuable economic activity have become a high priority in many policy agendas across the world. Giving data limitations, especially in post-socialist economies, a few studies have investigated the resource base and capabilities that are required in these processes. The aim of this paper is to explore the moderation influence of HEIs origins on the HEI-level factors that condition the knowledge transfer and commercialisation. Adopting the resource-based theory, we test a model with 41 Belarusian HEIs for a three-year period. Our findings reveal that, in the current economic situation, post-1991 HEIs do not substantially differ in terms of transforming financial resources into commercial outputs, while the knowledge creation capability is appeared to be a significant predictor of the success in knowledge transfer and commercialisation only in the case of these HEIs.