Understanding university-industry collaboration: a social exchange perspective on the entrepreneurial university

Abstract

AbstractThe aim of this study is threefold: firstly, to assess how the support provided by universities for academic collaboration with the industry may foster collaborative behaviour, based on academics’ perceptions of the benefits and costs of collaboration. Secondly, the research seeks to unravel the perceived benefits and costs of university-industry (U-I) collaboration among academic staff within three distinct Higher Education Institutes (HEI) located in three different countries. Thirdly, analyse the impacts of these perceived benefits and costs on U-I collaboration behaviour. To reach these purposes, this study used a quantitative approach involving 214 academic staff from three HEI located in Portugal, Poland, and Türkiye, who answered a questionnaire about their collaboration behaviours and their perceptions regarding support provided by the HEI and their personal benefits and costs of engaging in collaborative behaviour. Results from a partial least squares structural equation model (PLS-SEM) suggest that perceived support diminishes the costs and favours the benefits. Nevertheless, the perceived collaboration costs generally outweigh the benefits. Increasing U-I collaboration implies a more efficient support and the results from this study point to the need to design a system of extrinsic rewards benefiting the heavy collaborators.