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Most research and development (R&D) activities in Brazil are performed by science and technology institutions (STIs). The purpose of this research was to determine whether environmentally sound technologies (ESTs) developed by these organizations were transferred to companies, either through cooperation during research or through mechanisms such as licensing agreements or spin-offs.

In total, 1,939 research groups and 702 patent registers, identified from the same set of words related to ESTs, using semantic search in open-access databases, covering a period from 2005 to 2014, were examined. The two data sets (patents and research groups) were overlaid, and it was possible to associate inventors’ names with researchers’ names.

The results showed that only six patents could be related to the 1,939 identified research groups. Of the six patents, only one was the object of a licensing agreement, and no spin-off was identified.

This study evidenced that it is necessary to expand the mechanisms of knowledge transfer, directed not only from STIs to companies but also in the opposite direction, given that companies recognize potential market opportunities.

This study shows that improvements in the Brazilian National Innovation System are necessary, as ESTs research groups demonstrated a weak association with technologies transferred to companies, with only one case of technology transfer in the form of a licensing agreement.

This paper aims to analyze the link between universities and business incubators (BIs) and to determine how students, scientific researchers and entrepreneurs can benefit from this linkage. It creates an environment in which everyone can help the other to put their new ideas, special skills and abilities into new businesses. In other words, the traditional universities’ role has changed and entrepreneurial universities are now needed to redirect new knowledge for economic development through BIs.

This paper adopts an analytical descriptive methodology approach to describe the basic features of the data by using the descriptive research design. This research is based on examining a model provided by the author concerning boosting the entrepreneurial aspects and outcomes through university business incubators (UBIs) based on wide theoretical and empirical case studies. Also, the functional structural approach is used to investigate the relationship between two variables as UBIs are considered a new unit that has functions and structures to create an added value to universities and the society as a whole.

The educational system should create a favorable environment that enables young people to develop their mindset from employees to employers, and to prepare them to improve skills and knowledge to create jobs. UBI is the recent aspect of the BI evolution where the research outcomes are linked with the industry and development. This relationship between these entities will provide success to its stakeholders.

Many incubators around the world are supported by universities. Others are making initiatives to link up with universities and higher education institutions to get the revenues and returns from its academic nature. Lately, university incubators became a type of incubator evolution and more supportive for entrepreneurs than other types of incubators.

The contribution of this study is to explain how UBIs succeeded to tie the results of scientific research with economy and development through entrepreneurial activities to accelerate and realize entrepreneurship strategies.

Based on the case study of an SME company in the United Kingdom (which we will call SweetStar Cloud), this paper examines the attempts of the company to achieve significant strategic change. The company is attempting to move from being a tradition managed service provider of information services towards becoming a significant influencer in the market for digital services in the UK. As part of a knowledge transfer partnership (KTP), a local UK University has been closely involved in developing this new strategic direction and it is well poised to present and analyse the story. From the use of tried and tested strategic tools, including Porter's generic strategies and segmentation and targeting, the company has also embraced digital-specific approaches for developing partnerships with clients, developing pilot projects and experimenting with its use of social media. At the heart of this research is an analysis of the move from push marketing towards models of attraction. This paper aims to explore how traditional strategic tools are still applicable in the digital era alongside new tactical approaches in the digital sector. This aim has led to an approach to business that is responsible, in terms of moving away from a traditional push-selling model to one of partnership with customers at a strategic level. Strategy in dynamic markets often highlights responsiveness as a key success factor. The ability to respond (a response-ability) requires more agile companies. As SweetStar Cloud has developed its strategy, it has focused in achieving this more effective ability to respond through a more collaborative approach. In this sense, agile response-ability converges with business responsibility, as new abilities in communication, cooperation and trust development become key.

This paper is a response to a frequently asked question from prospective industry partners searching for opportunities to collaborate with the Computer Science Department of Swansea University, UK. This paper seeks to provide structured guidance in the form of what is titled the Industry Engagement Ladder.

The Industry Engagement Ladder presents a selection of collaboration opportunities, outlining the possible cooperation mechanisms between an industry partner and the academic institution.

Opportunities are described and ranked according to the amount of investment required by the industrial partner, and therefore risk, from low to high.

This concise paper provides a quick reference for perspective industry academia collaboration opportunities, the risks involved with each, the possible funding available to help foster these partnerships and the benefits to industry. These collaborative activities (and variations thereof) can be incorporated by any university department. The manuscript offers an ideal starting point for industry–university collaboration.

The purpose of this research is to investigate the causal mechanisms that explain the relationship between the long-term buyer–supplier relationship and buyer performance. Building on the growing body of research on social capital in supply chain management (SCM), the authors examine how a buyer achieves superior performance in forming the enduring partnership with a supplier through two different forms of supplier embeddedness: buyer–supplier dyadic embeddedness and supplier external embeddedness.

The bootstrapping method is utilized in data analysis to examine the mediating effects of the two different forms of supplier embeddedness simultaneously on the linkage between the duration of buyer–supplier relationships and buyer performance outcomes.

The authors find that the two forms of supplier embeddedness serve as distinct conduits for the buyer to translate the long-term buyer–supplier relationship into performance effectiveness. Notably, dyadic embeddedness only mediates the linkage between the duration of buyer–supplier relationships and buyer economic performance, while supplier external embeddedness solely mediates the linkage between the duration of buyer–supplier relationships and buyer innovation performance.

This study empirically demonstrates that different forms of supplier embeddedness may benefit a buyer differentially when directed at distinct performance goals. If a buyer can leverage both buyer–supplier dyadic embeddedness and supplier external embeddedness, the buyer will overcome value creation limitations of social capital from a single source, obtaining more comprehensive performance benefits sought by developing long-term buyer–supplier relationships.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and characterize knowledge integration approaches for integrating external knowledge of suppliers into new product development projects.

This paper is based on a multiple, in-depth case study of six product development projects at three knowledge-intensive manufacturing firms.

Firms make purposeful choices to devise knowledge integration approaches when working in collaborative buyer – supplier projects. The knowledge characteristics of the supplier input guide the choice of either coupling knowledge sharing and combining across firms or decoupling knowledge sharing (across firms) and knowledge combining (within firms).

This study relies on a limited number of case studies and considers only one supplier relationship in each project. Further studies could examine the challenge of knowledge integration in buyer – supplier relationships in different contexts, i.e. in relation to innovation complexity and uncertainty.

Managers need to make choices when designing knowledge integration approaches in collaborative product development projects. The use of coupled and decoupled approaches can help balance requirements in terms of joint problem-solving across firms, the efficiency of knowledge integration and the risks of knowledge leakage.

The conceptualization of knowledge integration as knowledge sharing and knowledge combining extends existing perspectives on knowledge integration as either a transfer of knowledge or as revealing the presence of pertinent knowledge without entirely transmitting it. The findings point to the complexity of knowledge integration as a process influenced by knowledge characteristics, perspectives on knowledge, openness of firm boundaries and elements of knowledge sharing and combining.