The firm's trust in its university partner as a key mediator in advancing knowledge and new technologies

Although industry-university relationships (I/URs) are of growing importance for creating knowledge and new technologies, I/URs remain relatively understudied. We build a theoretical framework that examines communication frequency, a facet of communication effectiveness, the personalness of the comm...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on engineering management 2003-08, Vol.50 (3), p.362-373
Main Authors: Santoro, M.D., Saparito, P.A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Business community
Collaborative work
Colleges & universities
Communication
Electronic mail
Email
Engineering management
Knowledge
Knowledge management
New technology
Partnering
Professional communication
Studies
Telephones
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Summary:Although industry-university relationships (I/URs) are of growing importance for creating knowledge and new technologies, I/URs remain relatively understudied. We build a theoretical framework that examines communication frequency, a facet of communication effectiveness, the personalness of the communication form (i.e., face-to-face, telephone, e-mail, and written), the firm's trust in its university partner, and the I/UR's knowledge and new technology outcomes. Our theoretical framework is tested using primarily survey questionnaire data collected from senior managers in 189 industrial firms across 21 university research centers. While previous research demonstrates the important connection between the way partners communicate and various collaborative venture outcomes, our results suggest that trust is an important mediator between communication and knowledge and technological outcomes in I/URs. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for both research and practice.
ISSN:0018-9391
1558-0040
DOI:10.1109/TEM.2003.817287