Organizational Routines and the Growth of Knowledge in Engineering: Evolving modes of academic engagement in biomedical engineering at Chalmers University of Technology 1948-2018

• This paper further develops the concept of organizational routines in the context of universities. We do so in order to propose an explicitly evolutionary economics approach to conceptualizing changes in academic engagement with industry and society over time. Within the extensive literature on university-industry interactions, the literature on academic engagement focuses upon the variety of knowledge networks between university and industry for societal impact, and contrasts that with the commercialization of university research results through patents and start-up companies. We have an empirical focus upon the changing micro-level of activities in the university, to further conceptualize what routines are, and how are related to the overall growth of knowledge. Biomedical engineering is relevant to study, because different fields of knowledge must be combined and re-combined to solve new problems and offer new solutions to existing problems. For medical innovation, hospitals are important as well as industrial firms. Drawing on a longitudinal study of biomedical engineering at one university over seven decades, we identify four distinct modes of academic engagement. We propose to conceptualize these modes of academic engagement as composed of sets of distinct routines. In particular, we have identified routines related to interactions with hospitals, both directly and through industrial firms, involving graduate students and their supervisors.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Academic engagement

biomedical engineering

medical innovation

organizational routines

university-industry collaboration

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)