University Relationship Management

In recent decades, to gain a competitive advantage, firms have improved their relationships with universities as the main generators of science and technology in modern societies. There are various goals and drivers that inspire firms to engage in such relationships. These goals and drivers, along with several facilitators, in turn indicate the existence of different types of relationships between firms and universities, which are characterized by different elements, like trust, commitment, and communication. It is very important for firms to manage the level of different elements in these relationships for different types of interactions, in what we call university relationship management (URM). The main purpose of this paper is to propose a generic framework for URM, to discuss the most important antecedents and consequences of URM, and to provide conclusions and avenues for future research.