Channels of interaction between public research organisations and industry and their benefits: evidence from Mexico

Abstract

The process of knowledge transfer between public research organisations and industry occurs through multiple channels of interaction, however, there are differences in terms of the benefits that the agents perceive. Based on micro-data, this paper explores which channels are the most effective for triggering different benefits perceived by researchers and firms involved in such interactions in Mexico. The results suggest that researchers obtain intellectual benefits from the bi-directional and the traditional channels. Firms obtain benefits related to production activities and innovation strategies from the bidirectional and the services channels, while the traditional channel only provides production-related benefits. These results raise different policy issues. First, fostering the bi-directional channel could contribute to building virtuous circles. Secondly, it is necessary to align the incentives to foster other channels of interaction. Thirdly, a change in the researchers' incentives is required to induce new benefits from interactions.

University-Industry Knowledge Transfer: Channels of Sport Research Interaction

“…Networking channels, scholars' mobility channels, as well as publication channels were not found to be significant in this paper on all three levels of research collaboration and were not in agreement with previous research from other countries and industries (e.g., Dutrénit, De Fuentes, & Torres, 2010;Orozco & Ruiz, 2010). These results provide evidence that U.S. sport managers who did collaborate with sport management academia are more concerned with working on joint research projects with sport academia than with meeting sport faculty at conferences they attend, accepting staff to hold positions in both a university and a business, or examining sport management academic publications.…”

Mapping the field: a bibliometric analysis of the literature on university–industry collaborations

“…Bekkers and Bodas Freitas (2008) suggest that the characteristics of the transferred knowledge, the characteristics of researchers involved, and the environment in which knowledge is produced and exploited determine the selection of a specific interaction channel. Subsequently, a related sub-stream examines the outcomes associated with the implementation of distinct interaction channels, such as the interaction quality and the associated risks and benefits within U-I partnerships (Arza 2010;Dutrénit et al 2010). Nevertheless, it remains an important challenge to nuance the effects of distinct interaction channels by considering short versus long-term goals, as well as acknowledge the role of the context by exploring outcomes across different sectors and collaborative projects with varying intensity of interaction (Schartinger et al 2002).…”

Innovation practices in emerging economies: Do university partnerships matter?

“…Firstly, one of the main criticisms of the dynamic capabilities concept is that these capabilities are difficult to measure empirically, and the same is true for underlying operational processes such as innovation practices. In this study, we controlled the ''strategic characteristics'' using proxies that could represent the capabilities that enterprises require to grow and survive, based on their objectives, resources and barriers (De Fuentes and Dutrénit 2012;Dutrénit et al 2010;Easterby-Smith et al 2009;Narayanan et al 2009;Scuotto et al 2016). In the ESIDET survey, measured with a Likert Scale (1-4), we identified some proxies that captured the relevance of certain objectives for enterprises' innovation practices (e.g., to reduce variable costs, reduce fixed costs, reduce damage to the environment, comply with standards and regulations, and reduce the use of inputs) as well as the identification of certain obstacles for enterprises' innovation practices (e.g., economic risks, high innovation costs, access to financial sources, internal rigidity, lack of qualified personnel, lack of technology updates, lack of market information, legislative obstacles, and lack of customer responsiveness).…”

“…In the ESIDET survey, measured with a Likert Scale (1-4), we identified some proxies that captured the relevance of certain objectives for enterprises' innovation practices (e.g., to reduce variable costs, reduce fixed costs, reduce damage to the environment, comply with standards and regulations, and reduce the use of inputs) as well as the identification of certain obstacles for enterprises' innovation practices (e.g., economic risks, high innovation costs, access to financial sources, internal rigidity, lack of qualified personnel, lack of technology updates, lack of market information, legislative obstacles, and lack of customer responsiveness). Secondly, we also included several variables related to the structural characteristics that determinate enterprises' innovation practices according to the product life cycle, access to resources and the barriers (Alcalde and Guerrero 2016;Cohen and Klepper 1996;De Fuentes and Dutrénit 2012;Dutrénit et al 2010;Hewitt-Dundas 2013;Santiago et al 2016): Enterprise's age measured with a dummy variable that indicates that the enterprise has less than 5 years old (1) or more than 5 years old (0); Availability of innovation resources measured by the investment in R&D expressed in pesos and the number of qualified personnel; Enterprise size measured as the number of employees and expressed in logarithms; Exports measured by means of a dummy variable where 1 represents those enterprises that have exported and 0 otherwise; Company group measured by a binary variable that takes a value of 1 if the enterprise is a part of a company and value 0 if it is a single-unit enterprise; Technological sector using a binary variable to identify if enterprise innovates influenced by technological sectors or not; and finally, we also controlled the location, including the entrepreneurial density of the state where the enterprises developed their economic activities.…”