The soft side of knowledge transfer partnerships between universities and small to medium enterprises: an exploratory study to understand process improvement

White, Gareth; Cicmil, Svetlana; Upadhyay, Arvind; Subramanian, Nachiappan; Kumar, Vikas; Dwivedi, Ashish

Abstract

© 2019, © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. The study explores the soft side of knowledge transfer partnerships between universities and small to medium enterprises (SMEs), a topic which is often neglected in the knowledge management literature. The aim of this paper is to uncover the issues which emerge during formation of a partnership between heterogeneous organizations and universities. In addition, the study unfolds the criticalities of typical process improvement capability that supports the knowledge transfer partnerships between universities and SMEs. Using multiple cases, this study unravels the dominant elements that influence knowledge transfer process development, governance, implications and responsibilities. The major contribution of this study is the development of a framework based on empirical evidence using three knowledge transfer partnerships (KTPs) which illustrates the way in which soft factors in knowledge transfer partnership phases may have an impact on success or failure of university–industry collaborations for innovation.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 8, 2018
• Online Publication Date: Jun 30, 2019
• Publication Date: Jun 30, 2019
• Deposit Date: Mar 12, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 1, 2020
• Journal: Production Planning and Control
• Print ISSN: 0953-7287
• Electronic ISSN: 1366-5871
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 30
• Issue: 10-12
• Pages: 907-918
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09537287.2019.1582098
• Keywords: knowledge transfer partnership, SMEs, university, case study, process improvement
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/876502
• Publisher URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09537287.2019.1582098
• Contract Date: Mar 12, 2018