A micro-level view on knowledge co-creation through university-industry collaboration in a multi-national corporation

Abstract

PurposeTechnology transfer (TT) in industry to university collaboration (UIC) literature focuses primarily on a macro view within an SME environment. While these discussions are important to establish the significance of encouraging UIC's as the value is important to both parties, there is a need for further research at a micro level to help understand key approaches to ensuring the success of the TT. By looking at how value created from TT for a multi-national corporation (MNC) with a project based within a single subsidiary, this research effectively looks at the issue from both a SME level (the subsidiary independently) and a MNC level.Design/methodology/approachThe research uses a longitudinal knowledge transfer partnership and action research to form a case study of Parker Hannifin's Gas Separation and Filtration Europe, Middle East and Africa (GSFE) division.FindingsThe research highlights the key areas to focus on in ensuring a successful TT within an UIC such as: once identifying the gap that a UIC is filling in the company, identifying internal barriers before the project starts; education of why change is necessary and then using knowledge experts to educate on the new processes being introduced and finally; incorporation of a full range of personnel, not just those directly involved in the day-to-day of the UIC.Research limitations/implicationsAs a case study, further research is required to make the results more generalisable. One way to do this would be to evaluate previous successful and unsuccessful UIC's and determine if the success criteria identified were present in these programmes.Practical implicationsThere are three critical points that can be taken away from this research and applied to any company looking to use UIC for TT and value co-creation. Education, external knowledge experts and business wide inclusion were highlighted in the findings as being potentially critical turning points and need to be addressed for successful TT.Social implicationsSuccessful UIC's further encourage investment in such programmes which has greater societal benefits. Not only can we see greater leaps in industry through better, more specific knowledge being transferred from the university, the industry knowledge fed into universities helps to guide research and teachings.Originality/valueThe micro level view created by action research based from the industry partner perspective adds another level of importance as the “how” for overcoming barriers is clearly addressed. Furthermore, the research looks at how a multi-national corporation can have value added through UIC's within subsidiaries which often is not addressed in the literature.

Blended system thinking approach to strengthen the education and training in university-industry research collaboration

“…University-industry research collaboration (UIRC) is one of the key components that deliver potential pathways to accelerate the economies of the nation (Iqbal 2018;Jones and Coates 2020;Lin and Yang 2020;Messeni Petruzzelli and Murgia 2020;Ting, Yahya, and Tan 2020). Regardless of extensive significance of UIRC, the existing literature suggested that the rate of technological innovation from UIRC is not satisfactory in several developing countries (Khayyat and Lee 2015;Bohin 2018;Parmentola, Ferretti, and Panetti 2020;Tseng, Huang, and Chen 2020).…”

Guest editorial

“…The next paper “A micro level view of knowledge co-creation through industry-university collaboration in a multi-national corporation” by Jones and Coates (2020) identifies the barriers and success factors required for the creation of environments supporting technology transfer activities. This paper highlights that education, external knowledge experts and business wide inclusion constitute critical turning points in a project.…”

The Dynamic of Knowledge Creation in Joint Industry-Academia Research Projects: Return from Recent Action-Research Experiences in the Domain of Logistics and Supply Chain Management

“…The literature studying joint industry-academia research projects assumes these projects should end with knowledge creation, that can even be a co-creation (e.g. [1,2]) or co-production (e.g. [3,4]).…”

“…However, the dynamic of this knowledge creation remains a black box. In line with the need for further research at a microlevel [2], the first objective of this research is to open the knowledge creation black box and study the knowledge processes at work.…”

“…Our experience of joint industry-academia research projects in management sciences, more precisely in the domain of logistics and supply chain management (SCM), shows that industry-academia interactions are fundamental to create knowledge valuable from a managerial and an academic perspective [5]. The key role of industry-academia interactions [2,3] and dialogue [1] is now clearly recognized and appears critical to enhance the impact of industry-academia collaboration [4]. Therefore, it seems important to adopt research approaches that demand or at least favor these interactions that, according to [1] and [2], support knowledge co-creation.…”