Intermediating knowledge exchange between universities and businesses
Section snippets
Making a knowledge economy
There can be no denying that the skill and knowledge intensity of a wide range of productive activities in manufacturing and in the services industries is on the rise. A closely related and parallel development is the quickening of technological change most notably but by no means exclusively in areas directly affected by the IT revolution.1 This began gathering momentum in
Universities and firms: the ties that bind
There is growing literature on the many faceted contribution of universities to development, a contribution which relies more and more on the accretion of knowledge in its many forms and the educating of the labor force. By socializing workers and equipping them with skills, universities and other training institutions play a vital role the world over. They are a crucial part of the foundation of any modern industrial economy and their salience is becoming greater in ones where economic growth
Intermediaries and tacit knowledge
Entrepreneurial initiatives of researchers, consulting arrangements between university faculty and firms, university spin-offs and the hiring of graduates by companies are the avenues through which knowledge and especially tacit knowledge, diffuses. However, the transition from the lab to the commercial realm is always a difficult one. Developing a product or a service based on a new technology can be a complicated and risky process. Many SMEs are often poorly informed about new technologies,
Special section in brief
The five other papers in the special section contribute to the rich and growing literature on university industry linkages (UILs) by closely examining the nature and functions of multiple intermediaries in specific contexts and by showing how the effective circulation of knowledge depends both upon an intertwining of tacit with codified knowledge as well as the efficacy of the knowledge networks to which the intermediaries belong. By highlighting these two aspects, the papers deepen our
Concluding observations
The papers in this special section illuminate different facets of knowledge intermediation. The papers lend support to those findings which suggest that it is the leading universities (general purpose intermediaries) and universities with strong and widely recognized research specializations that can engage in substantial and mutually advantageous knowledge exchanges with industry. Even in these cases, specialized and institutional intermediaries can facilitate knowledge transfer and strengthen
Acknowledgements
The research on university industry linkages was supported by a PHRD grant from the Government of Japan to the World Bank. I would like to thank Fumio Kodama and Kaoru Nabeshima for their helpful comments.
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