Thesis defense of María Vivar Simon

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Thesis defense of María Vivar Simon

THESIS

Thesis defense of María Vivar Simon

Title of the thesis: "University-Business Cooperation: A look at the organisational context-related factors that shape cooperation activities in Basque manufacturing SMEs". Obtained the SOBRESALIENTE CUM LAUDE qualification and has received the ‘Doctor Internacional’ mention.

2021·07·20

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  • Title of the thesis: "University-Business Cooperation: A look at the organisational context-related factors that shape cooperation activities in Basque manufacturing SMEs".
  • Court:
    • President: Maribel Guerrero (Northumbria University)
    • Vocal: Victoria Galán Muros (OECD)
    • Vocal: Rafael de Arce Borda (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid)
    • Vocal: Juan Carlos Aldasoro (UPV/EHU)
    • Secretary: Noemi Zabaleta Etxebarria (Mondragon Unibertsitatea)

Abstract

The importance acquired by university-business cooperation (UBC) in R&D and innovation policies (Vick and Robertson, 2018) has led to the vast majority of the literature on UBC being analysed from this perspective (e.g. Bruneel, D'Este and Salter, 2010; Bodas Freitas, Geuna and Rossi, 2013; Plewa, Korff, Baaken, et al., 2013; Rosendo-Ríos, Ghauri and Zhang, 2016; Santos et al., 2020). However, cooperation between universities and business is manifest in a wide range of activities in relation to the three missions of the university: education, research and entrepreneurship (Galán-Muros and Plewa, 2016). For this reason, the almost exclusive focus of the literature on UBC towards R&D has biased existing knowledge about the organisational context-related factors that determine it. This limitation calls for the development of empirical studies that analyse UBC from a holistic perspective.

In order to address this research gap, this quantitative study identifies and explores the organisational factors that (i) differentiate cooperating from non-cooperating manufacturing SMEs, (ii) determine the likelihood of manufacturing SMEs' cooperation universities, and (iii) determine the levels of cooperation in different UBC activities. Applying a questionnaire to a sample of 332 manufacturing SMEs located in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country, the impact is analysed of organisational context-related factors – general business characteristics, business openness, R&D, lifelong learning, absorptive capacity (AC), innovation, and UBC willingness and support – on 14 types of cooperation activities, identified and classified in the fields of education, research, valorisation and management (Davey et al., 2018). Specifically, the study analyses the following UBC activities: (i) education: student mobility, curriculum co-design and co-delivery, dual education and lifelong learning; (ii) research: joint R&D, consultancy and staff mobility; (iii) valorisation: commercialisation of R&D results, academic entrepreneurship and student entrepreneurship; and (iv) management: governance, shared resources and support.

Due to the key role of AC, both in the literature on UBC and in the various fields related to knowledge and technology transfer (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990; Zahra and George, 2002; Jansen, Van Den Bosch and Volberda, 2005; Biedenbach, Marell and Vanyushyn, 2018; Flor, Cooper and Oltra, 2018), the study places special emphasis on clarifying the role of AC in the various UBC activities.

The data obtained has been analysed using several different statistical techniques, including logistic regression models, linear regression models and structural equation models.

The organisational context-related factors that determine both the probability and the levels of cooperation in the various UBC activities differ, with the importance of both the relationship aspects and the knowledge base and cognitive proximity of the companies to the university being noteworthy.