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Who instigates university–industry collaborations? University scientists versus firm employees

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Abstract

While evidence on the causes and effects of university–industry interaction is abundant, little is known about how, and particularly by whom, such interaction is instigated in the first place and subsequently managed. In this paper, we investigate which mode of collaboration (joint research, contract research, consulting, in-licensing, or informal contacts) is more likely to be initiated and managed by firm employees versus by university scientists. Moreover, we are interested in the differences between small and large firms to see whether initiation and management are affected by firm size. Using a sample of 833 German manufacturing firms, our results indicate that university scientists typically start collaborations with industry, while firm employees would take over the management of projects. Results vary markedly between small and large firms, with university scientists having somewhat higher difficulties initiating collaborations with large firms than with small firms.

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Notes

  1. These aspects, while not exhaustive, have been motivated in the prior literature cited before. Our choice is also partly dictated by the level of detail in our survey.

  2. A part of the reason for the relative insignificance of the influence of TTOs might be that their role is often not well defined as they are trying to cater to multiple constituencies, notably university researchers on the one hand and university management on the other (O'Kane et al. 2015).

  3. These results are not reported but are available upon request.

  4. The results are available from the authors upon request.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, Illinois State University, Normal, IL, USA

    Rajeev K. Goel

  2. School of Economics and Management, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

    Devrim Göktepe-Hultén

  3. Department of Innovation and Organizational Economics, Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark

    Christoph Grimpe

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  1. Rajeev K. Goel
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  2. Devrim Göktepe-Hultén
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  3. Christoph Grimpe
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Correspondence to Christoph Grimpe.

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Goel, R.K., Göktepe-Hultén, D. & Grimpe, C. Who instigates university–industry collaborations? University scientists versus firm employees. Small Bus Econ 48, 503–524 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-016-9795-9

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