Rate My Professor Conor O'Kane

Professor Conor O'Kane holds the degrees of BSc, MBS, and PhD from the National University of Ireland Galway. He is a Professor in the Department of Management at the Otago Business School, University of Otago, where he teaches strategic management, innovation, and entrepreneurship to undergraduate, postgraduate, and executive students. His research examines strategy, innovation, and entrepreneurial processes, with a primary focus on university-industry engagement, particularly academic entrepreneurs and university technology transfer offices in the commercialisation of science. Over eight years within the Science for Technological Innovation National Science Challenge, he led longitudinal research projects that provided key insights into the functioning of science teams, including how they frame research agendas and engage stakeholders during the innovation process. Collaborating with international colleagues, he has pioneered research on the competitive behaviours, role identity, and knowledge transfer of publicly funded principal investigators in science. Additional research interests include firm turnaround strategies, innovation capabilities and performance, and entrepreneurial behaviours in developing economies.

Professor O'Kane serves as Head of Programme for the Otago Business School’s Bachelor of Entrepreneurship and was formerly Director of the Master of Entrepreneurship. He has supervised several PhD and Masters students and is currently involved in a five-year research collaboration evaluating the government’s R&D tax incentive. Key publications include: O'Kane, C. (2018). Technology transfer executives' backwards integration: An examination of interactions between university technology transfer executives and principal investigators, Technovation, 76-77, 64-77; Zhang, J. A., Edgar, F., Geare, A., & O'Kane, C. (2016). The interactive effects of entrepreneurial orientation and capability-based HRM on firm performance: The mediating role of innovation ambidexterity, Industrial Marketing Management, 59, 131-143; Cunningham, J. A., Mangematin, V., O'Kane, C., & O'Reilly, P. (2016). At the frontiers of scientific advancement: The factors that influence scientists to become or choose to become publicly funded principal investigators, Journal of Technology Transfer, 41, 778-797; O'Kane, C., Mangematin, V., Geoghegan, W., & Fitzgerald, C. (2015). University technology transfer offices: The search for identity to build legitimacy, Research Policy, 44(2), 421-437; and O'Kane, C., Cunningham, J., Mangematin, V., & O'Reilly, P. (2015). Underpinning strategic behaviours and posture of principal investigators in transition/uncertain environments, Long Range Planning, 48(3), 200-214. In July 2025, he delivered his Inaugural Professorial Lecture titled 'Innovation systems and the entrepreneurial turn in science.'