Cooperation between universities and SMEs: A systematic literature review

Abstract

This study aims to present the relationship between universities and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) through a systematic literature review. SMEs play an important role in economic development. Similarly, universities are important actors in the innovation system. To fulfil the study objective, data were collected from the Scopus database. The bibliometric results found, using bibliometrix software, reveal that this topic first appeared in the literature in 1995 and entered a growth stage in 2014. Systematically, studies have focused mostly on European countries and the emphasis in cooperation is on knowledge transfer. In addition, the results show that SMEs form cooperative relationships with universities in search of competitive results. However, the main difficulty with regard to the establishment of such relationships is a lack of knowledge in SMEs about university programmes that can support them and about how to access such programmes. Therefore, it is suggested that universities should establish more effective communication channels in order to reach this type of firm.

“Who you know affects what you know”: Knowledge transfer in the university–private partnership – a social capital perspective

“…To elucidate how the literature has addressed the SC-UPP, a systematic literature review was conducted. Through the lens of SC theory and following the principles and process of systematic reviews by Tranfield et al (2003) in the UPP field, the extant research on KT-UPP was explored (de Wit-de Vries et al, 2019; Perkmann et al, 2013; Pereira and Franco, 2021). In the first step, multiple iterations of searching through selected databases and publishers were undertaken; namely, Elsevier’s Scopus, Clarivate’s Web of Science Core (including the Social Sciences Citation Index and the Emerging Sources Citation Index), EBSCOhost (including the Business Source Complete database and the EconLit database), ProQuest, Emerald, ScienceDirect and Taylor & Francis.…”

“…KT has been identified as the most significant characteristic of UPP (Pereira and Franco, 2021; de Wit-de Vries et al, 2019). KT-UPP is applied through a variety of channels, such as joint research, publications, conferences and meetings, consulting, university patents licensing, mobility, etc.…”

“…These include cognitive differences between partnership actors and lack of trust between them. Additional barriers, related to differences of organisational culture, partner expectations, funding practices, policy and permissions regimes with respect to the acquisition of required knowledge, are also identified in the literature (de Wit-de Vries et al, 2019; Pereira and Franco, 2021; Battistella et al, 2016).…”

International trade and investment: A review and research agenda

“…In the realm of international business, trade policies and strategies hold immense significance. The earlier review studies have been conducted on vertical alliances and international intermediaries (Virtanen et al., 2022; Zahoor et al., 2023); cooperation among industries, organizations, universities, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and so forth (Castañer, 2020; Moirano et al., 2020; Pereira & Franco, 2022), but studies on the strategic significance of international trade and international cooperation remain scarce. Most of the export competition literature is confined to SMEs and micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) (Fabrizio et al., 2022; Hurley, 2018) but overall export competitiveness among nations has not been the subject of a SLR.…”

Peningkatan pemahaman pengelolaan koperasi bagi pengurus koperasi simpan pinjam dan pembiayaan syariah

“…Salah satu sektor yang terdampak pandemi COVID-19 adalah Usaha Mikro, Kecil, dan Menengah (UMKM), yang juga membawa kepada turunnya perekonomian nasional, hal ini bisa dipahami karena selama ini UMKM memiliki kontribusi yang besar dalam perekonomian nasional (Sasongko, 2020). UMKM menempatkan diri dalam perekonomian nasional dengan menambah produk domestik bruto yang berarti berfungsi dalam menyerap tenaga kerja dan menghasilkan pendapatan (Edelia & Aslami, 2022;Manville et al, 2018;Manzoor et al, 2019;Pereira & Franco, 2022). UMKM merupakan merupakan unit usaha yang memiliki sumber daya yang terbatas (Partanen et al, 2020), sehingga efek pandemi COVID-19 sampai saat ini semakin memperparah kondisi UMKM terutama terkait akses modal usaha.…”