Abstract
University-industry relations are an important factor for industrial innovation. However, the results of these relationships for the firms remain largely unmeasured. Moreover, the contribution of different types of interactions to fi rm innovativeness is kn own ma inly in th eoretical terms. Departing from a secondary data of Brazilian university-industry interaction survey, also known as “BR survey”, this study employs crisp-set qualitative comparative analysis (csQCA) to identify how five types of University-industry interactions - training-oriented, service-oriented, diffusion-oriented, d evelopment-oriented, a nd r esearch-oriented - c ombine t o p roduce h igh i nnovation o utput. Th e re sults sh ow th at th e mo st complex interactions - development-oriented and research-oriented - are the only types of interactions that alone lead the firm to high innovati-veness. In contrast, less complex interactions alone are not enough to make the firm innovate beyond the “new-to-the-firm” level and need to be complemented by more complex interaction
Highlights
Innovation is not a development of one individual firm, but an interactive process which interconnects the market view of companies to the scientific development of universities (West et al, 2014)
The results showed that research-oriented interactions (RE) and development-oriented interactions (DE) are the only interactions with universities that alone can allow the firm to achieve high innovativeness
The crispset qualitative comparative analysis (csQCA) analysis showed that development-oriented interaction and research-oriented interaction, which are the most complex UI interactions (Schaeffer et al, 2017) are the only UI interactions that alone lead the firm to high innovativeness
Summary
Innovation is not a development of one individual firm, but an interactive process which interconnects the market view of companies to the scientific development of universities (West et al, 2014). As shown by some recent studies (i.e. Schaeffer; Dullius; Rodrigues; Zawislak, 2017), in Brazil the most common University-Industry (UI) interactions are development-oriented, many firms do seek university not just to improve existing products or processes, but to achieve higher level innovativeness. In general, the number of studies that checked the relations between firms’ innovation performance and UI interaction per se is surprisingly low. For instance, only checked whether the presence of cooperation, regardless of its aim, affects innovative performance (Arant, Fornahl, Grashof, Hesse, Sollner, 2019). Patent applications do not necessarily translate into the creation of new products or processes and vice versa, in low-tech sectors (Reichert, Zawislak, Arundel, 2016; Smith, 2005)
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