Abstract
Research partnerships between university researchers and industry partners are becoming increasingly prevalent. For university researchers, maintaining autonomy is crucial. We explore how researchers strategically manage autonomy in collaborative research partnerships, using a framework to distinguish strategically planned and opportunity-driven behaviour in the process of selecting partners and executing research in partnerships. We then focus on the management of autonomy in setting research directions and managing the research process. We draw on insights from 14 management scholars engaged in collaborative Ph.D. research projects. Based on our analysis, we show that researcher autonomy has two facets: operational and scientific. Researchers are willing to compromise their operational autonomy as a price for industry collaboration. They have a strong need for scientific autonomy when deciding on research direction and research execution. Although they need funding, entering a specific relationship with industry and accepting restrictions on their operational autonomy is a choice. We conclude that researchers’ orientations towards practice and theory affects their choices in partnerships as well as modes of governance.
Highlights
In collaboration with industry, a key goal of researchers is to produce scientifically credible knowledge (Merton 1957)
The main conclusion of this study on the strategic management of autonomy in U–I partnerships is that the choice of collaborative U–I projects is primarily driven by researcher autonomy and their strategic orientation
We distinguished between operational autonomy and academic autonomy
Summary
A key goal of researchers is to produce scientifically credible knowledge (Merton 1957). Autonomy about deciding on scientific aspects of research is crucial to researchers (Zalewska-Kurek et al 2016). Threats to scientific credibility are perceived as a significant barrier to starting a university–industry (U–I) partnership (Ramos-Vielba et al 2016). Even in collaboration where partners are carefully selected (Steinmo and Rasmussen 2015), U–I partnerships may threaten autonomy (Estrada et al 2016). Job characteristics theory (Hackman and Oldham 1975) underlines that autonomy is a key driver of motivation, satisfaction and performance. In U–I partnerships, strategic positioning theory is salient, because it highlights the interplay between autonomy and resource dependence between researchers and industry partners (Kurek et al 2007; Zalewska-Kurek et al 2010)
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