Collaboration objectives and the location of the university partner: Evidence from the Piedmont region in Italy

Abstract

AcknowledgmentsWe are grateful to the Piedmont Chamber of Commerce for help with data collection, and particularly to Barbara Barazza for her support and comments. The UIPIE database used for this analysis was created with the support of the project IAMAT coordinated by Fondazione Rosselli. Financial support from the European Commission (FP6) Project, NEST-2006-PATH-Cul, CID, Contract n.: FP6 -043345 is gratefully acknowledged. For very helpful comments that have greatly improved the paper, we are grateful to the participants in the EAEPE conference "The economic crisis and the renewal of the European model(s): Revisiting the debate on varieties of capitalism", Bordeaux, October 28-30, 2010, and to three anonymous reviewers. AbstractThis study examines firms' decisions to collaborate with universities in their region as opposed to non-regional universities, focusing on the role of collaboration objectives.Through a survey of a representative sample of manufacturing firms in the Piedmont region (Italy), we find that firms seeking business advice are more likely to collaborate with regional universities while firms seeking R&D support and testing and analysis services are more likely to collaborate with both regional and nonregional universities. The partner university's location is endogenous to the level of investment in the collaboration; and the collaboration objectives provide good instruments. Some implications for regional policy are discussed.

What makes industry–university collaboration succeed? A systematic review of the literature

“…Despite these results, Drejer and Ostergaard (2017) conclude that to a certain extent geographical proximity matters for IUCs regardless of these relationships or the university's quality and ranking position. Interestingly, in this context we have also to distinguish between different kinds of knowledge: companies collaborating with universities for consulting issues searched for partners in the same region, while those collaborating for R&D or technical advice searched for partners outside their region (Isabel Maria et al 2014). Although most evidence is in favour of a short distance between collaborating partners, there are also results to the contrary, which indicate that successful IUCs tend to occur particularly between partners who are geographically at some distance from one another (Petruzzelli 2011).…”

What Determines Enterprises’ Perceptions of Future Development in Higher Education – Strange Bedfellows?

“…In line with the knowledge accumulated in research on UBC (e.g., Davey et al, 2011) the subjective information provided by the survey respondents is generally of very high utility (Walters, 2004) although it has been frequently ignored because of the respondents' level of experience and assessment capabilities (Lowe & Krahn, 1995). In line with other surveys in the field of UBC (e.g., Bacila et al, 2009;Jung, 2011;Okamuro et al, 2011;Iammarino et al, 2012;Yeo & Lee, 2012;De Marchi & Grandinetti, 2013;Hewitt-Dundas, 2013;Plewa et al, 2013;Sohal, 2013;Franco et al, 2014;Isabel Maria et al, 2014;Muscio & Vallanti, 2014;Plewa et al, 2015), the target enterprises were examined by non-probability sampling, implementing principles of quota, purposive and convenience sampling (sector distribution, size of the company, evidence of UBC, geographical scope and level of technological advancement; for a detailed description of the sampling procedure, see Melink et al, 2014, pp. 13-14).…”