Aligning university–industry interactions: The role of boundary spanning in intellectual capital transfer

Abstract

Abstract:In the UK, the boundary spanning role has taken on greater significance as successive governments emphasize how universities should play in direct knowledge transfer and changing academics' visions over third mission functions. Studies in the UK have focused on the relative performance of technology transfer organizations (TTOs) / knowledge transfer organizations (KTOs) or their use by academics and external organizations. Compared to their US and international counterparts, TTOs/KTOs at UK universities exhibit low-levels of absolute efficiency. Therefore questions remain relating to how to raise the efficiency and productivity of these units, how to attract and train staff with suitable qualifications/capabilities and how to change adverse attitudes towards knowledge exchange by some academics. Currently, there is a lack of a holistic view of these functions and the way they complement each other or coordinate their activities. This study addresses this gap in theory and practice and advances how universities should provide consistency in both the internal and the external interfaces, by the offer of a framework and key stakeholder insights.

‘Engineered’ University‐Industry Collaboration: A Social Capital Perspective

“…The transfer process would also include the tacit knowledge and experience (i.e., intangible components) stored within the individuals involved in creating and transferring the technology (Muthusamy and White, ), because technology and its knowledge base are typically inseparable (Bozeman et al, ). However, and despite the progress in this field, many studies show that technology transfer process in a UIC setting is actually complex and fraught with execution‐related difficulties and challenges, which can lead to suboptimal output (Perkmann et al, ; Chau et al, ; Miller et al, ). Seeking to unpack the complexity of this process, research has identified some critical factors that influence the effectiveness of technology transfer (Shane et al, ), including technology characteristics (e.g., ‘articulability’ and ‘appropriability’); actors’ perceived difficulty, compatibility, and observed benefit; technological uncertainty and inexperience (deficit in tacit knowledge to deal with the new technology); business newness (inability to commercialize innovation); and high upfront cost of the technology (Bruneel et al, ; Yang et al, ; Fernández‐Esquinas et al, ).…”

“…For example, Das and Teng () argued that, in addition to helping set the direction for the alliance, clear objectives also facilitate the institution of specific rules and regulations, which are important for formal control mechanisms. Importantly, these objectives would specify what is expected of partners, and thus make it easier for the partners to identify the activities to engage with in order to exploit their learning potential (Chau et al, ).…”

The interaction between knowledge management and technology transfer: a current literature review between 2013 and 2018

“…Review articles, as in Cunningham et al (2017), have developed qualitative methods for researching technology transfer. Chau et al (2017) sought to justify the low performance of the United Kingdom against the knowledge and technology transfer of organizations. Dubickis and Gaile-Sarkane (2017) reviewed the literature for the tacit dichotomy against explicit knowledge.…”

Industry Academia Collaboration in the Context of Open Innovation: Empirical Evidence from Pakistan

“…The social and economic benefits of academia such as training personnel, scientific knowledge transfer, and creating an infrastructure contributes to industrial innovation (Cohen et al, 2002;Elder, 2018). Academia feels dependency on the industrial sector for its knowledge economy, research & development, scientific approach, patenting (Nelson, 2001), academic entrepreneurship, (Shane, 2007), technology transfer, and collaboration centers (Chau et al, 2017;Nelson, 2001;Shane, 2007) and accordingly, it is hypothesized that;…”