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This paper aims to examine the degree to which individual technology transfer officers' heuristics and biases, as well as peer technology transfer institutions' practices, influence the technology commercialization decision‐making process.

A qualitative method was used to gather data from technology transfer officers (TTO) regarding how they make commercialization decisions. Responses were examined in the context of rational choice theory and institutional theory in an attempt to discern whether common decision‐making practices are shared among officers from different institutions.

The subjects shared relatively few common organizational and professional decision‐making practices. The sample was relatively evenly divided by TTO with an individual heuristic bias and those with a rational approach to decision making. Individual heuristics influenced all subjects to varying degrees.

The TTO plays a central role in the technology commercialization process yet the paper found little evidence that professional practice and standards were integrated into decision‐making processes. Further research examining why this is the case, and examining if there is a relationship to outcome success, is warranted.

Managers need to better understand and monitor how decisions are made within individual offices. Technology transfer directors should conduct a process audit to determine the extent decision‐making processes are internally or externally defined, and then implement best practice where appropriate.

Very few studies examine how TTO make commercialization decisions, and fewer examine this phenomenon in the context of both a rational choice and institutional theory framework.

Examines the relationship between a product’s features, the consumer’s quality evaluation, and the marketer’s pricing in the context of a dynamic product/market environment. Estimates a simultaneous system model using two‐stage‐least‐squares regression on Consumer Reports data of three high‐technology consumer durables which have shared common product/market characteristics but reached different levels of household ownership in the late 1980s. The results of pairwise correlation and 2SLS regression analyses revealed that the associations between prices and quality evaluations were insignificant, but the associations between product features and prices or between product features and quality evaluations, varied across the three product categories at their different levels of market penetration. As a product’s customer base widens or the consumer’s knowledge and experience with the product accumulates, the significant association of marketer’s prices changes from “with the product’s feature availability” to “with the consumers’ experience‐in‐use advantages,” while the significant association of consumers’ quality evaluations changes from “with the consumers’ experience‐in‐use advantages” to “with the consumers’ experience‐in‐use disadvantages.” The empirical results, however, suggest no relationship between the marketer’s pricing of a product and the Consumer Reports’ overall quality evaluations on the product.

Examines the effectiveness of advertising in the light of the shift of marketing budgets in favour of promotions. Discusses the reasons for this shift and summarizes studies which show that advertising does work, especially during recessions. Concludes that advertising should not be neglected since, unlike promotions, it both raises sales in the short term and builds brands in the long term.

The past decade has seen widespread adoption of specific strategy analysis methods ranging from PIMS to portfolio management. Recently, disenchantment has set in. The answer lies not in rejecting the various theories and models, but in creatively combining usage of them. Each may only give part of the picture, but together they can clarify even the most complex strategy.