Openness in university-industry collaboration: probing managerial perceptions
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to increase the understanding of decision making of managers of intermediary organizations in university-industry (UI) collaboration by probing managerial perceptions of openness in that context.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted 11 semi-structured interviews of managers of intermediary organizations in the context of UI collaboration. Using Grounded Theory, the authors analyzed how the managers talked about openness.
Findings
The authors found that the managers perceived openness in four distinct ways: first, openness as driven by management of the relationship, second, openness as driven by bringing people together, third, openness as a driver of co-creation and fourth, openness as a driver of beneficial results. From these findings the authors induce a framework for perception of openness.
Research limitations/implications
The findings are based on a relatively limited data set, which is a limitation of the study. Future research should study whether differences in perception of openness exist among different contexts or partners of UI collaboration.
Practical implications
The findings can potentially provide useful guidance to managers in UI collaboration as to how better understand the important concept of openness in that context.
Originality/value
This study addresses the lack of research on managerial perceptions on openness in the context in UI collaboration. Probing managerial perceptions of openness provides us with better understanding of managerial decision making in UI collaboration. The study contributes to scientific discussions on managerial perceptions of openness and to discussions on managerial decision making in UI collaboration.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the following intermediary organizations that took part in the study: Aalto Center for Entrepreneurship, Aalto Entrepreneurship Society, Aalto Partnership Program, Aalto Start-up Center, Aalto University Company Relations, Aalto Venture Garage (now known as Startup Sauna), Future Home Institute (now known as Living Places), Innovative City Program© and SimLab. This paper is based on a conference paper accepted for the conference program at Co-Create 2013 The Boundary Crossing Conference on Co-Design in Innovation, 16-19 June 2013. Espoo, Finland.
The research in this paper was conducted as a part of a European Union funded INNOPOLIS project, which aims to identify regional best policy practices in the field of knowledge exchange between universities and enterprises. The project was co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and made possible by the INTERREG IVC program.
Citation
Moilanen, H., Halla, M. and Alin, P. (2015), "Openness in university-industry collaboration: probing managerial perceptions", European Journal of Innovation Management, Vol. 18 No. 4, pp. 493-507. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJIM-05-2013-0048
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2015, Emerald Group Publishing Limited