Purpose This study aims to explore the factors undergirding knowledge creation in the university-industry complex inter-organizational arrangement. It builds upon social capital and relationship marketing theories. Design/methodology/approach This study uses a qualitative research design. In total, 36 innovation champions involved in knowledge creation were interviewed to provide detailed insights into the process. A thematic analysis of the in-depth interviews was conducted. Findings The principal finding was that opportunistic behavior was a significant barrier to knowledge creation. In severe cases, the knowledge creation process was destroyed, resulting in lost investment. Principled behavior and investment in affect-based and cognition-based trust, through five critical trust development activities, provided the best path to successful knowledge creation. Originality/value This study contributes to the knowledge management literature by providing insights into the enablers and barriers to the formation of cooperation, a crucial antecedent to knowledge creation literature. It also affords practical implications for innovation managers and policymakers on how they can improve knowledge creation by using social capital and relationship marketing theory in complex inter-organizational arrangements.

International evidence shows that research is increasingly being carried out in organisational forms built around cross‐sectoral (government, academic and business) and transdisciplinary teams with well‐defined national social, economic or environmental objectives in view. As a result, new and unfamiliar forms of organisational arrangements for research are emerging within universities and elsewhere. These collaborative research centres have been variously termed ‘hybrid’ or ‘parasitic’. This paper draws upon around 30 in‐depth interviews with participants from selected Australian Cooperative Research Centres (CRC). It examines how researchers reconcile the many demands of their dual role, first, as a government researcher or academic, and second as a committed participant in an industry‐collaborative research centre. These collaborations go beyond ‘applied research’ to span fundamental research and immediately useful knowledge. But reward systems and performance measures for academic researchers are still founded largely on ‘discovery’, while those for government researchers are based upon ‘application’. The risk is that researchers will be deflected by the collaboration in ways that conflict with their institutional responsibilities. The paper reports work analysing the management strategies used by the CRCs and their public sector partners to ensure that their common goals are achieved while preserving their institutional interests and the expectations of their research staff. The aim is to identify effective ways of managing the various ‘risks’ of cross‐sector collaborative research and development (R&D) in Australia and more widely.

Early promise for the Internet as a tool to make social research questionnaires easier and cheaper to deliver is not fully realized. This study reports a mixed-mode survey of 1,100 Australian researchers. When respondents were given the choice to complete either web-or paper-based versions of a questionnaire, the majority chose the paper-based mode. Web respondents were more likely to be young, male, middle ranking, and working in information technology-related sectors. The authors highlight the need to determine how far alternate delivery modes increase response rates. For mixed-mode surveys to be financially and methodologically worthwhile, the authors propose that the initial sample size be at least 1,000 individuals, this figure depending on the demographic characteristics of the sample. AbstractEarly promise for the internet as a tool to make social research questionnaires easier and cheaper to deliver is not fully realized. This study reports a mixed-mode survey of 1100 Australian researchers. When respondents were given the choice to complete either web or paper-based versions of a questionnaire the majority chose the paperbased mode. Web respondents were more likely to be young, male, middle ranking and working in information technology related sectors. We highlight the need to determine how far alternate delivery modes increase response rates. For mixed-mode surveys to be financially and methodologically worthwhile we propose that the initial sample size be at least 1000 individuals, this figure depending on the demographic characteristics of the sample.

In Australia, the federal (central) and State (regional) governments share constitutional responsibility for aspects of science and innovation policy. In practice, the federal government has tended to overshadow the States both in funding and policy for research and innovation. It can be argued that we are now seeing the strong rebirth of regionalism (at least at the State level) as far as government support for science, technology and knowledge‐based industries is concerned. The paper traces the growth of regional innovation policies through examples of initiatives from South Australia and other regions and examines the respective contributions of the State and federal governments. The character of State government support has evolved over the last 15 years, from sponsoring grand ‘technology citadels’ to today's strategies that take a more bottom‐up approach to building intense innovation environments, local clusters and knowledge hubs. Some of these trends reflect the influence of the global knowledge economy on regional industries, while others (notably the relative decline of the federal government as an R&D performer) are peculiarities of the Australian innovation system. The outcome is a significant evolution in Australia's innovation system, one which parallels responses to globalisation in other countries and suggests a different – but not diminished – role for public sector innovation policy.

Based on the resource-based view of the firm (RBV) and the resource/capability perspective of innovation, this study explores the independent and complementary effects of two types of innovation capability (namely product development capability and operational capability) on market performance in a sample of 2971 Chinese industrial firms. Product development capability and operational capability have different degrees of firm specificity in terms of the technological complexity of underlying resources. We further explore industry dynamism as an important moderating effect on the relationship between different types of innovation capability and market performance. Our findings suggest that,in the Chinese firms surveyed, both product development and operational capability in innovation positively contribute to market performance. The effect of operational capability is notably stronger than that of product development capability. We also confirm the complementary effect of operational capability with product development capability in enhancing market performance. Our findings further suggest that product development capability tends to have a stronger effect on market performance when the level of industry dynamism is low, while the impact of operational capability on market performance is stronger in industries with a relatively high level of dynamism.