Companies' human capital for university partnerships: A micro-foundational perspective

Ekaterina Albats (Corresponding author), Marcel L.A.M. Bogers, Daria Podmetina

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

37 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Forming strategic partnerships, particularly university partnerships, is among the important aspects of companies’ innovation strategies that shape their innovation performance. While research has uncovered many macro-level attributes of such partnerships, the micro-level, including the human side, of these inter-organizational relationships is only partly understood. We especially lack an understanding of how individual, manager-level characteristics facilitate company collaboration with partners such as universities. Applying a micro-foundational lens and building on 10 qualitative case studies, we identify how companies’ human capital helps overcome barriers and enhance the drivers of university–industry collaboration. We propose a two-dimensional framework consisting of companies’ human capital components and their managerial roles for university partnerships—attitudinal, relational, and cognitive—to guide future research on human capital in the context of university–industry strategic partnerships. The framework will also assist managers and recruiters in better understanding the role of human capital in their collaborations with universities.
Original languageEnglish
Article number120085
Number of pages15
JournalTechnological Forecasting and Social Change
Volume157
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Aug 2020
Externally publishedYes

Funding

This paper was inspired by the European Academic Network for Open Innovation (OI-Net project), which received funding from the European Union Lifelong Learning Programme under the Grant Agreement Number 2013-3830 ( http://oi-net.eu ). We would aslo like to thank the University-Industry Innovation Network (www.uiin.org) for the conference events, which supported the research behind this paper; paper discussants Pablo D'Este and Joona Keränen as well as the anonimous reviewers for their thoughtful comments.

Keywords

  • Human capital
  • Innovation
  • Micro-foundations
  • Strategic partnership
  • University–industry collaboration
  • University–industry partnership

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