University-Industry Collaboration: A Value-Based-View

Abstract

University-industry collaboration refers to the engagement and commercialization activities between university and industry. Academic engagement refers to the inter-organizational collaborations to pursue goals that aims to generate some benefits for both partners. Commercialization refers to the extraction of academic research or invention to obtain financial benefits. A considerable body of work highlights the channels, barriers, and effectiveness of university-industry collaboration (UIC), but was rarely explored from the perspective of value-based view. This research presents a case study of a firm that has achieved a successful UIC with the research center of a university, and the process of collaboration is examined from the perspective of value-based view (VBV). Value-based view is composed of three consecutive parts, value creation, value capture and value co-creation. The analysis of the case illustrated the values created and captured by the firms individually and the values co-created together. This research not only reveals the process of UIC, but it also demonstrated the mechanisms of the value co-creation process and conceptualized the process into three important aspects, shared vision, genuine, and respect. The three conceptualized aspects represent the three important factors that exists in a successful UIC partnership.