Universities as an External Knowledge Source for Industry: Investigating the Antecedents’ Impact on the Importance Perception of Their Collaboration in Open Innovation Using an Ordinal Regression-Neural Network Approach

Abstract

Within the highly complex ecosystem of industry-university collaboration in open innovation, three specific antecedents typically characterize the patterns of their interaction, i.e., motivations, barriers, and channels of knowledge transfer. However, an investigation of the extent to which these antecedents of opening up innovation impact the perceived importance of universities as an external knowledge source to the industry is still missing in the literature. Based on a research framework developed from a review of the literature, a two-stage ordinal regression, and neural network approach was performed to investigate this impact. In the first stage, the hypotheses of the proposed research framework were tested based on an ordinal regression, and those antecedents that significantly impacted the importance perception were revealed. In the second stage, an artificial neural network analysis was carried out to capture the complex relationships among the significant antecedents and the important perception of universities as an external knowledge source to the industry. On the whole, the findings of our study expand the existing open innovation literature and contribute to a more articulate view of the collaboration between industry and university in this field by providing a first perspective on which of the three antecedents has a significant impact on this perception and how such an impact can be predicted.

A Systematic Literature Review on University Collaboration in Open Innovation: Trends, Technologies, and Frameworks

“…www.ejkm.com 49 ISSN 1479-4411 Validating the proposed variables through confirmatory and exploratory factor analysis (Băban, Băban and Mitran, 2023) Exploring the determining factors from the perspective of academics involved in the collaboration with industry to develop a methodology for implementing open environmental policies and procedures for innovation between industry and universities.…”

“…Levels of Collaboration (Johnston, 2021); (Baban, Baban and Rangone, 2021b) (Băban and Băban, 2022); (Băban, Băban and Mitran, 2023); (Johnston, 2022); ; (Zhao, 2023); (Han et al, 2019); (Ponce, Polasko and Molina, 2021); (Rostoka, Locovs and Gaile-Sarkane, 2019); (Audretsch et al, 2023); (Tomita, 2022); (Koria et al, 2022); (de Araujo et al, 2020); (Huggins, Prokop and Thompson, 2020); (Campana et al, 2020) Policy Open innovation policy (Baban, Baban and Rangone, 2021b); (Johnston, 2022); (Szromek et al, 2023); (de Araujo et al, 2020) 6 Performance Patents/Intellect ual Property Rights…”

“…Collaboration in the social behavior domain may refer to cooperation between individuals or groups in social interactions. Collaboration that can be carried out in open innovation includes joint research (Johnston, 2021;Ponce et al, 2021;Audretsch et al, 2023;Tomita, 2022b) and collaboration technology (Comai, 2020;M. Băban et al, 2023).…”

“…Each has its role in the open innovation process. The role of universities includes being a source of knowledge and experts, a provider of access to research, a facilitator of the flow of knowledge, and a developer of new products and services (M. Băban et al, 2023;Johnston, 2022;Zhao, 2023;Huggins et al, 2020). The role of industry is to transfer knowledge to universities within its operating area, where they produce innovations (Băban and Băban, 2022).…”

Exploring the Role of Open Knowledge in Higher Education: A Comprehensive Review and Future Prospects

“…For instance, Atta-Owusu et al (2021) discuss the drivers behind such collaboration, emphasizing the role of research excellence and firm collaboration strategy. Furthermore, studies such as those by Azagra-Caro et al (2022) and Baban et al (2023) delve into the impact of academic engagement and the perception of collaboration importance on innovation and knowledge transfer processes.…”