This study aims to investigate the effects of public research organizations' technology entrepreneurship and external relationships on technology transfer performance. The results show that the degree of public research organizations-industry collaboration has a negative effect on public research organizations’ spin-off creation but positive effects on their technology license agreements and licensing income. In addition, both organizational- and individual-level technology entrepreneurship positively affect public research organizations’ technology licensing income and, simultaneously, have a negative moderating effect on the relationship between the degree of public research organizations-industry collaboration and spin-off creation. Therefore, public research organizations’ top managements and policy makers should consider these different mechanisms and the double-edged sword effects of external relationships when they formulate strategies or policies for technology commercialization.