This paper proposes a complementary explanation behind the turnover of target’s top managers in post-acquisition periods. Although human capital and acquisition implementation literature describe managerial retention as desirable, empirical studies have reported significant managerial turnover in acquisition of high-tech and knowledge intensive firms. Borrowing some insights from the team diversity literature, the paper examines the ex-ante diversity among top managers of knowledge-intensive and high-tech firms as an antecedent of their turnover in post-acquisition. We argue that diversity reduces the coordination efficiency necessary to transfer knowledge and facilitate post-acquisition organizational integration, and managers belonging to such teams are more likely to be replaced. Empirical analysis drawing on 2164 top managers in 297 Swedish firms shows that managerial position diversity as a separation, pay disparity and industrial tenure diversity as a variety indeed are associated with managerial exit in three years after the acquisition.
Is the Bayh-Dole intellectual property regime associated with more and better academic entrepreneurship than the Professor's Privilege regime? The authors examine data on US PhDs in the natural sciences, engineering, and medical fields who became entrepreneurs in 1993-2006 and compare this to similar data from Sweden. They find that, in both countries, those with an academic background have lower rates of entry into entrepreneurship than do those with a non-academic background. The relative rate of academics starting entrepreneurial firms is slightly lower in the United States than in Sweden. Moreover, the mean economic gains from becoming an entrepreneur are negative, both for PhDs originating in academia and for non-academic settings in both countries. Analysis indicates that selection into entrepreneurship occurs from the lower part of the ability distribution among academics. The results suggest that policies supporting entrepreneurial decisions by younger, tenure-track academics may be more effective than are general incentives to increase academic entrepreneurship.
Baltzopoulos A. and Brostrom A. Attractors of entrepreneurial activity: universities, regions and alumni entrepreneurs, Regional Studies. This paper investigates how universities may affect regional entrepreneurship through the localization decisions of entrepreneurial alumni. Empirically, a comprehensive, individual-level data set from Sweden for the period 2003-2005 is employed. The results suggest that even when controlling for their spatial history, individuals have an increased propensity to set up in the region where they studied. This effect is found to substitute for both urbanization economies and localization economies as drivers of regional-level entrepreneurship. Thus, the present analysis provides evidence on how universities affect regional economic development that complements the strong focus on spin-off activities by university researchers in previous studies.
This study investigates how research group characteristics relate to the early career success of PhD candidates who are trained in the group. In particular, I study how the citation impact of early-career PhDs is related to the staff composition and funding of the group. Using data on a cohort of Swedish doctoral graduates in science, engineering, mathematics and medicine, two sets of findings are obtained. First, students who were trained in groups with a lower number of PhD students perform better in terms of academic productivity. From the perspective of research policy, this finding suggests a decreasing return to funding additional PhD student positions allocated to professors who are already maintaining larger research groups. Second, PhD students trained in groups with funding for PhD research that is conditioned by funder influence over the topic of thesis research are more likely to stay in academia. Controlling for career destination, however, PhDs from such groups have lower than average scientific productivity and citation impact. These results suggest that finders of PhD studies face a trade-off between the two different funding objectives of "getting what they want" in terms of research content and fostering successful scholars.
R&D managers at 50 firms who have formal relations with two research universities in Stockholm are interviewed about their rationales for collaboration. Drawing on this material, a distinctive typology of rationales for establishing cooperative relations is presented. While the typology demonstrates a considerable breadth of interaction rationales, rationales related to innovation, in terms of invented or improved products or processes, are found to be the main drivers for interaction. Based on this framework, we analyse which rationales for interaction are consistent with public rationales for supporting university-industry relationships. Public co-funding that allow firms to influence (part of) the academic agenda is identified as a particularly interesting case that requires further theoretical attention.
R&D managers at 50 firms randomly selected from all firms who have formal relations withtwo research universities in Stockholm are being interviewed about their rationales forcollaboration. Drawing on this material, a distinctive typology of rationales and the therewithassociated effects from cooperative relations is presented. As expected, rationales related toinnovation, in terms of invented or improved products or processes, are found to be themain drivers for interaction. As regards the nature of the innovation process leading toinnovation, most respondents indicate that “indirect” relationships between collaborationoutcomes and successful innovation dominate over “direct” appropriation of results.Contrasting open ended search rationales with pursuit of defined objectives, we find thatboth types are strongly represented among the studied collaborative linkages. We also findthat interaction rationales often go beyond the pursuit of innovation per se; firms also workwith university researchers to access academic networks, to develop its human capital and torealise direct business opportunities. The consequences of these findings for policy measuressteered towards the strengthening of collaborative university-industry linkages are discussed.
The systems of innovation approach has helped advocating a view on innovation as dependent onthe interaction over time between different actors and brought the role of institutions to the centerof interest. However, the approach has remained a general framework rather than evolved into ananalytical tool for the study of the dynamics of innovation activities. In this discussion paper, weintroduce the concept of innovation system services, defined as the set of factors that have asignificant potential influence on the opportunities of a certain groups of actors to perform a certaintype of activities efficiently. We suggest that the relevant innovation system for the actors-activitiesnexus at hand can be defined as this set of system services. We examine this analytical framework ina case study on R&D investments of multinational enterprises in Sweden. In this context, innovationsystem services are defined as the set of external factors that the case study suggests to havesignificant impact on the decisions of MNEs to invest in R&D in Sweden. The focus on servicesallows us to analyse the influence of an innovation system on the long-term development of R&D inSweden in a structured and coherent manner and to identify critical dynamics.
Since the contribution of Cohen et al. (Management Science, 2002, 48: 1-23), it is well established that linkages between engineering firms and public research organisations serve to both suggest new R&D projects and comple existing projects. However, the literature has little to say about whether these two types of outcomes are linked or independent effects. Drawing on theories of organisational learning and empirical analysis of data on Swedish engineering firms, this paper establishes that the occurrence of useful impulses to further R& D is inherently linked to the achievement of objectives related to a firm's ongoing R& D projects. This connection is, however, mediated by the character of the project objective. Compared to linkages where objectives of exploration and exploitation are balanced, the connection between serendipitous learning and the achievement of established R& D objectives is stronger when these objectives are oriented towards exploration and weaker when objectives are oriented towards exploitation.
Since the contribution of Cohen et al. (2002), it is well established that linkages between firms and public research organisations (PROs) serve purposes of both suggesting new R&D projects and completing existing projects. However, the extant literature has little to say about whether these two types of outcomes are linked or independent effects. This paper examines how a firm‟s ability to absorb useful impulses to new R&D projects from interaction with public research organisations depends on how and how well the firm is able to utilise such linkages in project completion. An analysis of Swedish firms suggests that interaction provides impulses to further R&D primarily when it is successfully linked to achieving objectives in ongoing R&D projects of the firm. However, linkages which are focused on contributions to short-term projects are less likely to generate useful impulses. Moreover, not only are linkages which support both long-term and short-term objectives better than linkages which solely serve short-term objectives; firm-PRO linkages in which short-term objectives play a less accented role are most likely to facilitate valuable impulses to further R&D and innovation.
Since the contribution of Cohen et al. (2002), it is well established that linkages between firms andpublic research organisations (PROs) serve purposes of both suggesting new R&D projects andcompleting existing projects. However, the extant literature has little to say about whether these twotypes of outcomes are linked or independent effects. This paper examines how a firm’s ability toabsorb useful impulses to new R&D projects from interaction with public research organisationsdepends on how and how well the firm is able to utilise such linkages in project completion. Ananalysis of Swedish firms suggests that interaction provides impulses to further R&D primarily whenit is successfully linked to achieving objectives in ongoing R&D projects of the firm. However,linkages which are focused on contributions to short-term projects are less likely to generate usefulimpulses. Moreover, not only are linkages which support both long-term and short-term objectivesbetter than linkages which solely serve short-term objectives; firm-PRO linkages in which short-termobjectives play a less accented role are most likely to facilitate valuable impulses to further R&D andinnovation.
This doctoral thesis consists of five self-contained essays on interaction in R&D between university researchers and private firms. Together, these essays explore the conditions under which private firms benefit from spillovers from publicly funded and organised research. From the first essay, which sets out to empirically validate the theoretical arguments about the benefits of university-industry interaction for private firms, the thesis follows a line of pursuit that goes back and forth between exploration of the different benefits that firms enjoy from university interaction and the relationships between these benefits and the conditions of interaction. In essay II, a typology of rationales for establishing cooperative relations is presented. A considerable breadth of interaction rationales is documented, but on closer examination, a “core” set of rationales related to innovation in terms of invented or improved products or processes are found to be the main drivers of interaction. Developing this view, three critical issues previously studied within innovation economics are re-considered from the point of view of firm rationales for interaction; public co-funding of university-firm interaction (essay II), the role of geographic proximity for interaction on R&D (essay III) and the organisation of public sector research (public research institutes and universities) in relation to firm level competences (essay IV). In a fifth essay, four ideal types of strategy for localised interaction between R&D subsidiaries and universities are proposed. Through the framework developed in this essay, the rationales for interaction are related to the overall R&D strategy of multinational firms. Concluding the thesis, it is discussed how the research presented herein opens up for improved theorizing around the roles of academic research for industrial innovation.
This paper studies the role of geographic proximity for interaction on R&D, by exploring the special case of university-industry contacts. While numerous studies find that geographic proximity facilitates spillover effects between university and industry by utilising evidence from e.g. patenting and publishing activities, the geographical dimension is largely understudied in studies that report evidence from direct interaction. To explore when geographical proximity matters for university-industry interaction, a series of interviews with R&D managers in Swedish engineering firms is conducted. These interviews suggest that linkages in geographical proximity are more likely to generate impulses to innovation and create significant learning effects at the firm. Similarly, geographic proximate interaction is more likely to successfully contribute to R&D projects with short time to market. For long-term R&D projects, geographic proximity is generally seen as a less critical factor. A survey to 425 R&D managers in Swedish engineering firms provides evidence that supports these hypotheses.
This paper studies the role of geographic proximity for interaction on R&D by exploring the special case of formalised university-industry interaction in the engineering sector While numerous studies find that geographic proximity facilitates spillover effects between university and industry by utilising evidence from e g patenting and publishing activities the geographical dimension is largely understudied in studies that report evidence from direct interaction A series of interviews with R&D managers suggests that linkages in geographical proximity are more likely than distant linkages to generate impulses to innovation and create significant learning effects at the firm Similarly geographic proximate interaction is more likely to successfully contribute to R&D projects with short time to market For long-term R&D projects geographic proximity is generally seen as a less critical factor A survey to 425 R&D managers in Swedish engineering firms provides evidence that supports these hypotheses.
This paper investigates how universities may affect regional entrepreneurship through the localisation decisions of entrepreneurial alumni. Empirically a comprehensive, individual-level dataset from Sweden for the period 2003-2005 is employed. The results suggest that even when controlling for their spatial history, individuals have an increased propensity to set up in the region where they studied. This effect is found to substitute for both urbanisation economies and localisation economies as drivers of regional-level entrepreneurship. Thus, the present analysis provides evidence on how universities affect regional economic development that complements the strong focus on spin-off activities by university researchers in previous studies.
Universities face new challenges in the knowledge economy, due to two underlying transformations. One is that universities have increasingly developed from bodies of professorial self-governance bodies towards a status as ‘complete’ organisational actors, able to develop and deploy organisation-level strategies. A second is that by becoming key players in the knowledge economy and responding to stakeholder expectations, universities also have taken on new missions in addition to teaching and research. We propose that a series of new challenges arise from interrelations between universities’ internal organisational dynamics and changes in their external relationships. Moreover, we outline the contributions to this special issue, each of which address a specific question through their respective conceptual discussion and/or in-depth examination of these challenges. We conclude with recommendations for future research on the roles of universities in the knowledge economy and for innovation. Specifically, we propose that future research should simultaneously tackle vital issues about governance of universities and their activities, while also further developing extant empirical work on the microfoundations of academic knowledge production and career dynamics.
This paper explores the introduction of centrally coordinated initiatives aimed at formalising universities' relationships to external organisations. Such initiatives are referred to as structured relations. Based on a review of nine Swedish Universities, we identify three types of structured relation initiatives (network events, collaboration platforms, partnership agreements). In common for all structured relations identified are that they offer new opportunities to manage external expectations on universities, in particular as regards their ability to demonstrate their commitment to outreach activities. The formalisation of outreach activities challenges the academic tradition of giving individual professors discretionary mandates to enter and manage external relationships. Drawing on a collective action perspective, we analyse the tensions that are generated when universities introduce new elements of support and central coordination of outreach activities. The introduction of structured relations potentially contributes to changing the nature of the university as an organisation.
Higher education institutions identified as ‘technical universities’ enjoy considerable status in many countries. Yet studies of boundary negotiations from a range of settings suggest that opportunities to transform into a broader, research-based university often takes precedence over the alternative vision of remaining or moving towards becoming a focused technical university. In this chapter, we discuss alternative explanations for the lacklustre appeal of the latter type of institutional template, and outline a roadmap for how the historical legacy of the technical university may be cultivated.
n academic research on private R&D investments, sectoral differences are generally analyzed on the basis of firms’ classification according to systems such as the American NAICS and the European NACE industry classification systems. The same classification principles are applied in many countries and regions when aggregating R&D statistics to the level of industries, for example by the EU’s statistical office Eurostat. We report evidence suggesting that the share of R&D associated with development of service-oriented products or with service activities is systematically lower than the share of R&D conducted by service sector firms. Results from a survey run in Sweden shows that the revenue streams in a significant share of R&D-performing service sector firms (as classified according to NACE) are dominated by sales of physical products (e.g. factoryless goods producers). An even larger share report that a majority of their R&D is directed towards development of physical products rather than service products (e.g. consultancy companies acting as external R&D departments for their clients in manufacturing industries). These findings imply that the share of R&D investments focusing on service-oriented activities is even lower than traditional statistics suggest.
Industrial consolidation through mergers and acquisitions has been important for development of the IT sector. M&As constituted a force of creative destruction parallel to the mechanism of exit through bankruptcy. Drawing on new empiricalevidence, we argue that M&As also provided new impulses and opportunities for entrepreneurship and stimulated between-firm job mobility of key persons in the sector. We conclude that the intensive M&A-activity of the period contributed to renewal and growth of the ICT software and services industry at large, but did not lead to the creation of new Swedish-based multinationals in the sector.
The issue—how a firm’s R&D (Research and Development) interaction with universities affects its innovation performance—remains under-researched. This study explores the relationship between firms’ collaboration with universities and their capabilities for innovation, as perceived by R&D managers. Drawing on a series of interviews with R&D managers of 45 randomly selected firms collaborating with two research universities in Sweden, we explicitly recognize mechanisms through which university relationships contribute to successful R&D management.
The issue of through what processes R&D collaboration with universities affects a firms’innovation performance remains under-researched. In particular, university relationships have notbeen fully integrated in the open innovation framework. This study explores the relationshipbetween firms’ collaboration with universities and their capabilities for innovation, as perceivedby R&D managers. Drawing on a series of interviews with R&D managers at 45 randomlyselected firms collaborating with two research universities in Sweden, we explicitly recognisemechanisms through which university relationships contribute to successful R&D management.
This chapter provides an integrated view of knowledge transfer between university and industryby combining two different approaches. First, we report results from an econometric analysis,where recent matching techniques are used on a dataset of 2,071 Swedish firms. Our findingsfrom this analysis strongly suggest that university collaboration has a positive influence on theinnovative activity of large manufacturing firms. In contrast, there appears to be an insignificantassociation between university collaboration and the average service firm’s innovation output.Second, in the pursuit of credible explanations for these findings, we apply a semi-structuredinterview methodology on 39 randomly selected firms collaborating with two researchuniversities in Stockholm, Sweden. We identify three ideas for how collaboration may help firmsbecome more innovative in the literature of innovation studies. In analysis of the interviews, wefind very weak support for the first idea; that firms are able to exploit and market innovationsoriginating in the university. The second idea – that firms improve their internal innovativecapability by collaboration – is found to apply to about half of the investigated firms. Innovationefficiency gains in the form of reduced cost and risk for innovation projects, which is a third ideasuggested by the literature, are also suggested to be a major factor behind firms’ benefits. Finally,we offer tentative explanations for the lack of measurable effects of collaboration for servicefirms.
This article analyzes the conditions for mobilizing the science base for development of public policy. It does so by focusing upon the science-policy interface, specifically the processes of direct interaction between scientists and scientifically trained experts, on the one hand, and agents of policymaking organizations, on the other. The article defines two dimensions - cognitive distance and expert autonomy - which are argued to influence knowledge exchange, in such a way as to shape the outcome. A case study on the implementation of congestion charges in Stockholm, Sweden, illustrates how the proposed framework pinpoints three central issues for understanding these processes: (1) Differentiating the roles of, e.g., a science-based consultancy firm and an academic environment in policy formation; (2) Examining the fit between the organizational form of the science-policy interface and the intended goals; and (3) Increasing our understanding of when policymaker agents themselves need to develop scientific competence in order to interact effectively with scientific experts.
This paper examines how the institutional set-up of public research organisations (PROs) affects how firms are able to utilise direct interaction with publicly employed researchers. We argue that the role that PRO interaction has to play in the firm’s innovation processes depend on the organisational and cognitive distances between the firm and the PRO. In particular, this paper empirically explores how Swedish engineering firms assess the value of R&D partnerships with universities and research institutes. Our theoretical discussion of organizational distance suggests that managers should perceive institute contacts to be more strongly associated with short-term R&D projects than university contacts. This hypothesis cannot be verified. Following from our discussion of cognitive distance, we find that firms with advanced R&D capabilities obtain differential benefits. Their interaction with universities provides impulses for innovation and offers opportunities to learn to a greater extent than contacts with public research institutes. However, firms with less advanced R&D capabilities perceive no significant differences between university and institute interaction. Thus, both organizational and cognitive distance affect firms’ interactions with PROs, and our results have implications for the current push in Europe to reform universities and institutes.
We examine how firms assess the value of R & D partnerships with two types of public research organizations: public research institutes (PRIs) and universities. Survey data on Swedish engineering and manufacturing firms suggest that contacts with universities provide firms with impulses to innovation and offer opportunities to learn to a higher extent that contacts with PRIs. Guided by a view of institutes as more oriented towards applied R & D than universities, we also test whether managers perceive institute contacts as contributing more strongly to short-term R & D projects than universities. This hypothesis cannot, however, be verified. Our results suggest that, in terms of perceived effects of R & D managers, PRIs and universities are more similar as collaboration partners than would be expected, given the differing institutional set-ups. Implications for current discussions about the role of PRIs in national research and innovation systems are discussed.
In spite of a long-standing interest in the distribution of knowledge spillovers from university research, there is only limited theoretical understanding of if and when opportunities to interact with a research university constitute a significant force of attraction for globally mobile investment in RD. Based on an empirical investigation of the benefits of interaction with universities, this paper proposes an analytical framework and four ideal types of strategy for localised collaboration between RD subsidiaries and universities. This taxonomy, which largely transcends industry sectors, and the illustrative cases presented in this paper provide insights into the potential scope for localised university-industry interaction from the perspective of multinational enterprises. By connecting the empirical results to the question whether these benefits are significant enough to enhance a region's attractiveness as a location for RD, we are able to develop a better understanding of the alternative strategies for policymakers and university leaders interested in stimulating such linkages.
This paper investigates the willingness of buyers in a business-to-business setting to pay a price premium for services embedded with prosocial value. We theorize that such willingness is contingent on buyer characteristics in the form of explicit and implicit institutionalisation of ethics, and buyer vertical integration. We furthermore argue that when competing against an offer that is embedded with guarantees against corporate irresponsibility (“do-no-harm”), the appeal of an offer that is focused on more ambitious ethics (“do-good”) will be subject to considerable price sensitivity. However, a supplier with a prosocial orientation can increase the appeal of its offer by leveraging associations between prosocial value and the quality of its products and services. In an experimentally oriented study of purchasing activity in the Swedish market for cleaning services, we find support for these arguments.
This paper demonstrates that while ideals of close linkages between research and teaching are widely embraced in research-oriented universities, a practice of division of labour between teaching-oriented and research-oriented staff persists. In an investigation of how the research–teaching nexus is managed at three Swedish universities, we identify a perceived misalignment between institutional incentives for individual academic staff and the needs of teaching. Under pressure from such tensions, managers are forced to deploy pragmatic strategies for the staffing of undergraduate education tasks. This includes allowing research needs and agendas to take priority over teaching needs. While managers seek to secure the participation of senior researchers in education, they often actively prefer to delegate the bulk of teaching activities to less research-active staff. Such strategies seem to reinforce existing patterns of division of labour among academic staff.
This chapter provides an overview of the historical development of technical institutes and universities from their foundation in the late eighteenth century to the present time. Our account, which is focused on European experiences, shows that technical universities are characterized by their historical relations to the industrial revolution, and since that time their strong linkages to industry (from initially local to increasingly global). The chapter also highlights some persistent tensions and dilemmas related in part to this historical legacy, including the introduction of and relation to research, the balance between theory and application, and the ‘congestion’ in engineering programmes. Development over the last decades revolves around the profiles and scientific scope of technical universities. Over time, new areas have been introduced, mirroring their technical development and in some countries—as a consequence of external drivers and strategic agendas—eye-catching reorganisations and new initiatives have increased the portfolio way beyond the classical engineering subjects.
Classifications of higher education institutions into categories that are more or less clearly differentiated through prestige and status are legion in the world of higher education. The notion of parallel categories with comparable statuses, such as those of different types of universities, is however much less well understood. This paper investigates how universities navigate between such alternative categories. We examine boundary work and institutional change involving Swedish higher education institutions with significant activity in engineering sciences in order to analyse how actors relate to ideas regarding the category ‘technical university’ as an ideal potentially distinct from that of the broad, comprehensive university. Analysis of two cases in the second half of the twentieth century shows that for engineering faculty, a focused technical university was an attractive alternative to the institutional model of the broad university. In contrast, analysis of two twenty-first-century cases suggests that aspirations to be recognised as a technical university were largely driven by adaption to external stakeholders’ interests. We discuss these findings in light of the emergence of the global hegemonic category ‘research university’. We also suggest that the organisational identity of a HEI may be tied to ideas about an organisational category through imprinting and path dependency. Moreover, we propose that changes over time in how categories are perceived may serve as an impetus to organisational change.