Industry-university collaboration and absorptive capacity : an empirical study in a Swedish context

• In this paper, we examine the role of firms' absorptive capacity in industry-university collaboration and, in particular, whether absorptive capacity moderates the effects of university collaboration on firms' innovativeness. Having defined absorptive capacity as the recognition, assimilation and application of valuable external knowledge for commercial purposes, we formulated three hypotheses pertaining to firm innovativeness and tested them in an original survey comprising a representative multi-industry sample of 1,532 Swedish firms. The results suggest that benefiting from university cooperation is conditional upon the firm's level of absorptive capacity. At low levels of absorptive capacity, engaging with universities does not translate into any noticeable increase in innovative output. In contrast, medium to high levels of absorptive capacity is where a firm benefit most from collaborating with a university. We also show that these effects are more pronounced for firms operating in sectors characterised by lower levels of technology and knowledge intensity.

Ämnesord

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

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

Nyckelord

industry-university collaboration

innovation performance

absorptive capacity

ABSCAP

moderating fect

business-university collaboration

academic collaboration

innovativeness

innovative output

knowledge intensity

technology intensity

survey

multi-industry sample

cross-sectoral study

Sweden

företagsekonomi

Business Studies

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)