Innovative Research Skills of Business Educators for Commercializing Research in Tertiary Institutions in Rivers State, Nigeria

Abstract

Research output commercialization is gaining popularity in all academic fields as a way to better demonstrate higher institutions’ external impacts. Thus, this study investigates the extent to which Business Educators' in tertiary institutions in Rivers State possessed innovative research skills for research outputs commercialization. A survey design was employed for the study. Three specific objectives, three research questions and three hypotheses were used in the study. All 73 Business Educators' in the six tertiary institutions in Rivers State made up the population of the study, and because of its manageable size, the entire population was used for the study. Data was gathered using a self-structured instrument titled: "Innovative Research Skills for Research Outputs Commercialization" questionnaire, which was validated by experts. The Cronbach Alpha reliability test was used to pretest the instrument, and the results showed an index of 0.86 which denote that the instrument was reliable. Out of 73 questionnaires that were given to the respondents, 71 were reclaimed and utilized for the study. The obtained data was analyzed using mean and standard deviation, and hypotheses formulated for the study were tested using Analysis of Variance at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that the extent of innovative research skills possessed by Business Educators for research outputs commercialization is generally low. Therefore, it recommends amongst others that, Higher Education Institutions management should organize workshops, seminars and mentorship programmes related to research commercialization and innovative research skills in collaborations with industry partners, local and international researchers for academic researchers.