Revisiting “the shotgun wedding of industry and academia”—empirical evidence from Finland

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to further our understanding of dilemmas facing the third mission of universities. Through this dilemma-related information, we aim to provide paths for universities to reconcile these dilemmas and adopt a more holistic approach to university marketing. In so doing, we revisit Bthe shotgun wedding of industry and academia^(Hampden-Turner 1990, pp. 201-221). The dilemmas detected in this study revolve around two pairs, namely: BHighlighting intrinsic value of research vs. highlighting instrumental value of research^and Bfocusing on international scientific publications vs. focusing on popularization of science^. More than 700 verbal answers given by Finnish doctorates to one pair of open-ended questions were qualitatively contentanalysed. As its main novelty, the study adopts dilemma approach and focuses on perceptions of the neglected group of doctorates who have exited academia. The study suggests that universities adopt a more holistic marketing approach by devoting more effort to strengthening stakeholder relationships and co-production and improving science communication and related incentives.

Revisiting the five problems of public sector organisations and reputation management—the perspective of higher education practitioners and ex-academics

“…External funding is competitive funding that is mostly derived from public sources such as the Academy of Finland or Business Finland (formerly called the Finnish Innovation Agency, TEKES). It is not a part of the funding derived from governments' core funding model (Pekkola et al 2015;Kallio et al 2017;Suomi et al 2019).…”

“…By Ba university's third mission^we refer here to Ball activities concerned with the generation, use, application and exploitation of knowledge and other university capabilities outside academic environments^ (Molas-Gallart and Castro-Martínez 2007, 321). Naturally, problems arise when these contradicting needs are simultaneously pursued with limited resources (Ylijoki and Ursin 2013;Suomi et al 2014;Suomi et al 2019).…”

“…In this study, 40 semi-structured interviews were analysed to further our understanding of universities' reputation management problems. The interviews were gathered from a group that has been largely neglected in previous studies: doctorates who have exited academia, or ex-academics (see also Suomi et al 2019). To the knowledge of the authors, prior literature has not covered the perceptions of university reputations as perceived by academic workers who have exited academia and transferred to other sectors to work.…”

Examining the Core Dilemmas Hindering Big Data-related Transformations in Public-Sector Organisations

“…Stability is needed for an organisation to function and operate, while new developments are needed for its future success. When seeking to attain both values simultaneously, managers must balance and reconcile the dilemma pair with both / and solutions instead of either / or solutions, which yield a zero-sum outcome and no new developments for the organisation (Hampden-Turner 2009;Laine 2018;Suomi et al 2019).…”

“…Th us, mutually exclusive but equally desirable intentions and outcomes create dilemmas, which, as Hampden-Turner (1990) argued, lead to tensions over values (Suomi et al 2019;Kuoppakangas 2014Kuoppakangas , 2015. Dilemmas diff er from the sort of policy options Pollitt and Bouckaert (2011) discussed, since decisions concerning the latter can be resolved through the application of data.…”