Designing a conceptual pattern of knowledge commercialization in Distance Higher Education System: the case of Payame Noor University

The present study aims to design a conceptual model for commercialization of knowledge in the distance system of higher education carried out with at Payame Noor University serving as one of its main centers. The Research method was Qualitative based on Grounded Theory with the systematic approach. The statistical population consisted of all members of faculty and doctoral students in specialized fields at Payame Noor University. In this research, theoretical purposive sampling method was to select 29 participants (including 19 members of the Faculty and 10 doctoral students from Payame Noor University) from whom the required data, saturated their etically, were collected. The research instrument comprised a semi-structured interview. To analyze the data the three-stage process of coding (open, axial and selective) based on a systematic approach of grounded theory was used. The implementation of open coding process led to the identification of the 133 concepts (the initial open codes) which were reduced to 8 main categories with 33 subcategories (the secondary open codes). Then, paradigm model based on the axial coding process in the form of the causal conditions (environmental capabilities), the contextual conditions (organizational capabilities), the intervening conditions (individual characteristics of knowledge builders, characteristics of produced knowledge and knowledge's customers), the core phenomenon (knowledge commercialization), strategies (designing and implementation of facilitating mechanisms) and consequences (knowledge-based society) were graphed and finally, the ultimate conceptual pattern of research was using the depicted selective coding process in the form of propositions that refer to the relationship between the main categories