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Organizations increasingly rely on external sources of innovation via inter‐organizational network relationships. This paper explores the diffusion and characteristics of collaborative relationships between universities and industry, and develops a research agenda informed by an ‘open innovation’ perspective. A framework is proposed, distinguishing university–industry relationships from other mechanisms such as technology transfer or human mobility. On the basis of the existing body of research, the role of practices such as collaborative research, university–industry research centres, contract research and academic consulting is analysed. The evidence suggests that such university–industry relationships are widely practised, whereby differences exist across industries and scientific disciplines. While most existing research focuses on the effects of university–industry links on innovation‐specific variables such as patents or firm innovativeness, the organizational dynamics of these relationships remain under‐researched. A detailed research agenda addresses research needs in two main areas: search and match processes between universities and firms, and the organization and management of collaborative relationships.

The debate on the entrepreneurial university has raised questions about what motivates academics to engage with industry. This paper provides evidence, based on survey data for a comprehensive sample of UK investigators in the physical and engineering sciences. Our results suggest that most academics engage with industry to further their research rather than to commercialize their knowledge. However, there are differences in terms of the channels of engagement. While patenting and spin-off company formation is motivated exclusively by commercialization, joint research, contract research and consulting are strongly informed by research-related motives. We conclude that policy should refrain from focusing on monetary incentives for industry engagement and consider a broader range of incentives for promoting interaction between academia and industry.

We explore how transitory management fashions become institutionalized. Based on the concepts of institutional entrepreneurship and institutional work, we postulate that fashionable management practices acquire permanence when they are anchored within field-wide institutions. The building of such institutions requires various types of institutional work, including political work, technical work and cultural work. Based on a review of the empirical literature on various management fashions, we identify the actors engaging in these different types of works, and their skills. Our results suggest that the institutionalization effect is stronger if more types of institutional work are deployed and if the skill sets of the involved actors vary. We also argue that institutional construction in the case of management fashions is likely to take the form of decentralized 'partaking' rather than being led by a single dominant institutional entrepreneur. We conclude with implications for the study of management fashions and the role of agency in institutionalization.

While firms increasingly engage in formal alliances with universities, there is a lack of tools to assess the outcomes of such collaborations. We propose a performance measurement system for university-industry alliances. We derive a success map from existing research on university-industry relations, indicating the causal relationships underpinning successful alliances. The success map distinguishes between different process stages, including inputs, in-process activities, outputs and impacts. We discuss specific measures for each of these stages, and how they should be deployed. The resulting framework includes both prospective and retrospective measures and subjective and objective measures. It provides research and development managers with a tool for assessing university-industry alliances that is prospective, reliable and multi-dimensional.R&D Management 41, 2,