Title: The death valley of the university-industry cooperation with universities: from intention to action

Authors: Sara Fernández-López; David Rodeiro-Pazos; Nuria Calvo; Braulio Pérez

Addresses: Department of Finance and Accounting, University of Santiago de Compostela. Avda. do Burgo, s/n., 15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain ' Department of Finance and Accounting, University of Santiago de Compostela. Avda. do Burgo, s/n., 15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain ' Department of Economic Analysis and Business Administration, Campus de Elviña, University of A Coruña, s/n, 15071 A Coruña, Spain ' Foundation of University of A Coruña, Paseo de Ronda 47, 2nd Planta, 15011 A Coruña, Spain

Abstract: Research transfer depends mostly on the firm's goodwill for cooperation. However, very few papers deal with the intentions and attitudes of firm's representatives when they decide to cooperate with universities. Following an outside/in approach, this paper explores firms' attitudes towards R&D cooperation by focusing on the determinants of both having an interest in engaging with universities and the decision to pursue it. Using a sample of 262 firms, we studied the process of the development of interest to the formal decision to collaborate and found that the type of innovative activities carried out by the firm could explain the firm's interest, but not the formal decision to cooperate with universities. In turn, the strategic focus of the firm explained the decision to cooperate with universities. These results reinforce the need to design policies that build relations between researchers and firms at an individual level based on the firm's needs, instead of focusing on the institutional level based on the university's needs.

Keywords: university-industry collaboration; strategy; research and development; innovation transfer.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEIM.2019.098143

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, 2019 Vol.23 No.2, pp.142 - 160

Received: 30 Apr 2016
Accepted: 21 May 2017
Published online: 05 Mar 2019 *

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