IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT, VOL. 48, NO. 2, MAY 2001
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Corporate Strategic Objectives for Establishing
Relationships with University Research Centers
Michael D. Santoro and Alok K. Chakrabarti, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—Organizations face increased pressures to continually advance knowledge and new technologies for their
long-term success and prosperity. University research centers
offer important interorganizational linkages for industry–university collaboration, conducive for advancing knowledge and new
technologies. This study examined industry’s strategic objectives
for establishing relationships with university research centers.
As a result of this multimethod exploratory field study, we have
identified three clusters of industrial firms with different strategic
objectives: collegial players, aggressive players, and targeted
players. Collegial players are predominately large firms working
with university research centers on topics of interest to the firm
which are perceived to have long-term value rather than the
promise of immediate commercial opportunities. Aggressive
players are a mix of both large and small firms employing relationships with university research center primarily to develop and
commercialize a wide range of marketable products and services.
Targeted players are often smaller firms largely interested in using
their relationships with university research centers to address
specific needs central to their business. We conclude this paper
by discussing the implications of these findings for both industrial
firms and universities.
Index Terms—Industry–university collaboration, industry’s
strategic objectives, knowledge and technology strategy.
I. INTRODUCTION
R
APID technological change, shorter product life-cycles,
and more intense global competition have combined to
radically transform the current competitive environment for
most firms [1], [2]. As a result, the timely development and
commercialization of new technologies are critically important
for firm growth and survival [1], [31]. While past practices
clearly emphasized in-house R&D efforts for developing new
products and technologies, it is increasingly more difficult
for firms to rely solely on internal organizational units due
to limited expertise and resources [14]. A few scholars have
pointed out the advantages of interorganizational collaboration
for facilitating the advancement of new technologies [16], [22],
[24], [29]. Since industry–university (I/U) relationships are a
growing and important trend in interorganizational collaboration [30], we focus here on I/U alliances.
Studies on I/U collaboration for advancing new technologies
[4], [12], [21], [30], have primarily dealt with various relationships outside the realm of university research centers. UniverManuscript received February 18, 2000. This work was supported by the
Center for Innovation Management Studies and its corporate sponsors.
M. D. Santoro is with the College of Business and Economics, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA 18015 USA (e-mail: [email protected]).
A. K. Chakrabarti is with the School of Management, New Jersey Institute of
Technology, Newark, NJ 07102 USA (e-mail: [email protected]).
Publisher Item Identifier S 0018-9391(01)03727-8.
sity research centers encourage a variety of diverse collaborative
activities through a formalized structure that provides explicit
leadership for transferring knowledge and new technologies [3],
[30]. University research centers are becoming more important
as the National Science Foundation (NSF) has taken a significant role recently to help universities organize these centers.
We investigated several university research center models including the following:
1) engineering research centers (ERCs) that are created
through multiyear, multimillion dollar funding from the
NSF to promote certain key technological fields;
2) industry–university cooperative research centers (IUCRCs) that are funded by the NSF at a smaller level to
promote industry participation;
3) university research centers that have been created without
any direct federal support.
Our focus in this study is on the firm’s strategic objectives for
establishing I/U relationships across the various research center
models. Our specific research questions for this investigation
are: 1) What are the industrial firm’s strategic objectives for
establishing I/U relationships with university research centers?
and 2) To what extent do these strategies differ among firms?
In the next section, we provide a brief background to I/U
collaboration. This is followed by a discussion on the ways
in which industrial firms and universities work together.
This relationship structure provides a framework for better
understanding industry’s strategic objectives for establishing
alliances with university research centers.
II. BACKGROUND AND I/U RELATIONSHIP FRAMEWORK
A. Background
Industry–university relationships have a long history. For example, the German pharmaceutical firm Bayer created relationships with universities as far back as the late 19th century [5].
In the U.S., the National Research Council united scientists in
the research-oriented universities with those in industry to assist the war effort during World War I. Today, both industry and
universities seek to establish close ties with one another for a
number of reasons. Industrial firms gain access to highly trained
students, professors, university facilities, and leading-edge technologies. Additionally, firms can often enhance their image and
reputation by associating with a prominent institution [8]. Universities primarily interact with industrial firms to raise additional funds, particularly for basic research [17], [20]. Funding
from industry is very appealing since it usually involves less bureaucratic red tape than funding from the federal or state governments. Additionally, universities want to collaborate with in-
0018–9391/01$10.00 © 2001 IEEE
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT, VOL. 48, NO. 2, MAY 2001
dustrial firms in order to expose students and faculty members
to practical problems, develop internships for current students,
create employment opportunities for university graduates, and
gain access to applied technologies [18].
Industry–university collaboration can provide new opportunities for advancing new technologies. For example, I/U partnerships in biotechnology have helped advance basic research
in microbiology [24]. Also, pharmaceutical firms have relied on
university-assisted basic research in the areas of pharmacology
and chemistry to develop new drugs [33]. Additionally, manufacturing firms like Chrysler Corporation have worked with
university partners to address applied engineering projects [10].
Consequently, as a result of an overall increase in I/U collaboration, the number of patents issued to universities and their
industrial partners have increased significantly this past decade
[18], [19].
B. I/U Relationship Framework
Consistent with previous studies by the NSF [20], [21], we
observed that industrial firms and universities work together
in a variety of intertwined ways to advance both knowledge
and new technologies. Specifically, I/U relationships encompass
four highly related components: research support, cooperative
research, knowledge transfer, and technology transfer.
Research support is the contributions of both money and
equipment made to universities by industry which can sometimes be in the form of unrestricted gifts. These funds are
extremely valuable since the university has flexibility in the
way they can be applied, such as to upgrade laboratories,
provide fellowships to graduate students, or provide seed
money for promising new projects [27]. In the past, industry
often contributed large amounts of unrestricted funds and
equipment that the university could use as they saw fit [27].
Lately, however, industry’s support for university research is
much more targeted and tied to specific research projects, with
much of the funds aimed specifically at advancing knowledge
and new technologies.
Cooperative research reflects close interactions through institutional agreements, group arrangements, use of institutional facilities, and informal interactions [20]. By far, contract research
by an individual university investigator is the most frequently
used institutional agreement. While this type of arrangement
usually involves one faculty member working with a single firm
on a specific research project, it can often lead to broader initiatives in the future [20].
Group arrangements include research consortia emphasizing
frequent contacts between the member organizations and the
university’s faculty, staff, and students. A third way in which
there is cooperative research between universities and industry
is through the use of university facilities where industrial partners are attracted by a coordinated research agenda and access
to state-of-the-art equipment and facilities [19]. Finally, cooperative research occurs in many informal ways such as the coauthoring of research papers and ad-hoc conversations [19].
Knowledge transfer encompasses a variety of different activities that include personal interactions between industry and university personnel, formal cooperative education programs, and
personnel exchanges. A common mode of knowledge transfer
is consulting services provided by individual faculty members,
which often stimulate larger scale I/U research programs or joint
ventures [26]. Knowledge transfer also occurs through cooperative education programs, internships, and job placements for
students and recent graduates [26].
Technology transfer capitalizes on joint I/U research, specifically for advancing new technologies [21]. Some of the more
common technology transfer activities include: addressing specific research problems, providing technical expertise to companies seeking to develop new products or processes, assisting
entrepreneurs in start-ups, and providing technology patent or
licensing services.
Having described the variety of I/U relationship alternatives,
we now extend the notion of strategic groups [25] to provide
the backdrop for addressing our two research questions. In this
study, we are interested in identifying groups of companies with
commonality in strategies, regardless of their industry affiliation. Since a wide range of I/U relationship alternatives exists,
segmenting firms by strategic objectives will provide a meaningful contribution to the literature which, to date, has been neglected.
III. RESEARCH METHOD
A. Overall Research Approach
As mentioned earlier, our main focus was on research centers
such as NSF–supported Engineering Research Centers (ERCs)
and I/U Cooperative Research Centers (IUCRCs) since they
have formal structures with explicit missions to advance knowledge for new technologies through various interorganizational
relationship alternatives [3], [11]. Our study consisted of two
different sources of exploratory data. First, we examined 12
recent NSF program evaluations and survey protocols. Next,
15 semistructured face-to-face and phone interviews were conducted with industrial firm representatives and university center
directors. The analysis of program evaluations and survey protocols along with the interview data were used to clarify and
substantiate the I/U relationship framework. The interviews also
provided face validity to the survey questionnaire that we developed for obtaining quantitative data on the firm’s strategic objectives.
Of the 29 research centers in prominent public and private
research-oriented U.S. universities contacted, 21 centers agreed
to participate in our study. Those opting not to participate did
so largely due to time and resource constraints. The survey
questionnaire was mailed to each industrial firm representative
of the corporate partners identified by the participating research
centers. Structured interviews were also conducted to validate
the survey questionnaire data and to obtain additional data
on the firm’s strategic objectives. Interviews were conducted
with the main contact in 31 firms in the following industries:
semiconductors (ten firms), metals and fabricated metals (12
firms), manufacturing (five firms), and biotechnology (four
firms). These four industries were targeted because they could
provide a meaningful contrast with respect to various firm
strategies and types of technologies pursued, e.g., radical versus
incremental or product versus process [32].
SANTORO AND CHAKRABARTI: OBJECTIVES FOR ESTABLISHING RELATIONSHIPS WITH UNIVERSITY RESEARCH CENTERS
B. Sample
The 21 participating research centers consisted of eight
NSF–supported ERCs, eight NSF–supported IUCRCs, and
five research centers created without NSF support. The 21
centers represented different disciplines with a wide variation
of corporate partners. This diversity of sample offered a better
prospect to generalize our findings beyond the idiosyncratic
nature of one particular center or a specific industry condition.
On average, each research center had 20 industrial firms as its
members. In total, the 21 centers collaborate with 421 industrial
firms. Survey questionnaires were sent to all 421 firms. In
total, 207 questionnaires were returned, but five were missing
significant data. Thus, 202 responses were useable, for a
response rate of 48%. An analysis was conducted to determine
if there was any response bias. No significant differences were
found between the respondents and nonrespondents based on
firm size, industry, partnering research center, or length of
relationship.
Five of the participating firms had more than one person
involved in their I/U relationships. In these situations, survey
questionnaires were sent to each participant within the firm
with the multiple responses aggregated into one score for the
firm. That is, the average of the two, or in two cases, three
responses by firm, were used to reflect the firm’s collective
insight on their relationship with the university center [28]. This
aggregation was done since each participant was knowledgeable about the relationship and each had a significant stake in
the relationship. Moreover, the participants were homogeneous
since formal and explicit I/U relationship objectives existed
in each of the firms.1 As a result of data aggregation, our
sample size for analysis was 189 firms. The sample firms can
be characterized as follows: 120 firms were high tech, 33 firms
were capital intensive, 27 firms were resource intensive, and
nine firms were labor intensive [17].
IV. RESULTS
Seven key factors were identified in our exploratory interviews as being especially important to industrial firms in establishing I/U relationships:
1) strengthening skills, knowledge, and gaining access to
university facilities for advancing core technologies;
2) strengthening skills, knowledge, and gaining access to
university facilities for advancing noncore technologies;
3) organic and adaptable corporate culture;
4) flexible university policies for intellectual property rights
(IPR), patents, and licenses;
5) presence of an I/U champion at the firm;
6) firm’s level of personal interactions and resource commitments in their I/U relationships;
7) level of tangible outcomes generated from I/U relationships.
Survey responses were used to calibrate the relative importance of these seven key factors. Following previous research,
1Homogeneity among the respondents was confirmed by high inter-rater reliability. The Spearman–Brown Formula equaled 0.74 mean individual reliability
and 0.85 mean aggregate reliability when there were two respondents, and 0.71
mean individual reliability and 0.89 mean aggregate reliability when there were
three respondents.
159
(see for example, [6]), similar clustering techniques have been
performed using certain key variables as the basis for firm clustering. To conduct a comprehensive analysis, both hierarchical
and nonhierarchical cluster analyses were employed [13]. Following Hair et al. [13], an agglomerative hierarchical technique
was initially conducted to establish potential clusters, create the
profile of the cluster centers, and identify any outliers. After creating the initial clusters and a number of outliers were examined
and deleted, the remaining observations were again clustered
using the nonhierarchical method. The nonhierarchical analysis
enabled us to fine-tune our original agglomerative hierarchical
results [13].
Fig. 1 shows the seven key factors used as the basis for our
cluster analysis. The resulting three clusters of firms are not significantly different when the means are compared for an organic
0.05) or for the presence of
and adaptable corporate culture (
0.05). However, there are sigan I/U champion at the firm, (
nificant differences between the three clusters when the means
are compared for the remaining five factors. That is, the three
clusters differ on the basis of
1) strengthening skills, knowledge, and gaining access to fa0.01);
cilities for advancing core technologies (
2) strengthening skills, knowledge, and gaining access to fa0.01);
cilities for advancing noncore technologies (
3) flexible university policies for intellectual property rights,
0.001);
patents, and licenses (
4) the firm’s level of interactions and resource commitments
0.001);
in their I/U relationships (
5) the level of tangible outcomes generated from I/U rela0.001).
tionships (
After creating the three firm clusters, our cluster profiles
were completed by using additional data obtained from both
the survey questionnaire and structured interviews (Table I
indicates the source of these data). The means for each of
the additional variables measured in our survey—e.g., firm
size—were again compared using both hierarchical and nonhierarchical cluster analyses [13]. As with the seven key factors
described earlier, significant differences between clusters
were found for each of these variables based on the univariate
-ratio (minimum of
0.05). While means testing could not
be performed on the interview data, the interview data provided
rich details about the firms’ strategic objectives in each cluster
[13].
The three firm clusters are displayed in Table I, and consist
of collegial players, aggressive players, and targeted players.
A nonparametric test on the three clusters confirm an uneven
15.9 with 2 d.f.,
0.001).
distribution (
Collegial players accounted for 22% of the firms. Generally,
these firms have lower levels of interactions and resource commitments in their I/U relationships and generate lower levels
of tangible outcomes. Collegial players are predominantly
large firms, i.e., 500 employees and more, with a strategic time
horizon that is primarily longer term, i.e., five years and more.
Following Lawrence’s [17] industry typology, the majority
of firms participating in this study are in high-technology industries, and this is reflected as the predominant industry concentration across all three clusters. For collegial players, firms
in resource intensive industries make up the second largest
160
Fig. 1.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT, VOL. 48, NO. 2, MAY 2001
Results of cluster analysis: Seven key variables as the cluster variate.
industry concentration. A key theme for collegial players is
their focus on relationship building as opposed to advancing
new products and processes. While there is an interest in
advancing new technologies, collegial players are more concerned with exchanging technical information in order to be
privy to the latest developments in precompetitive research.
These firms also want to effect the direction and application
of this technical information. Finally, since collegial players
rely heavily on universities for supplying trained human resources, they want to influence the university’s curriculum by
being involved in its development.
Aggressive players accounted for 46% of the firms. These
firms have the highest level of interactions and resource commitments in their I/U relationships and also generate the
highest level of tangible outcomes. Aggressive players are an
equal mix of large and small firms and have a strategic time
horizon that generally integrates both long- and short-term
perspectives. The majority of firms in this group come from
high technology industries, while the second highest concentration come from capital intensive industries. The Aggressive
player’s major focus in establishing I/U relationships revolves
around advancing new technologies, both core and noncore,
to their business. Following resource dependence [23], this
group establishes I/U relationships in large part to build and
strengthen a wide array of skills and knowledge, gain access
to university facilities, and link to cutting-edge technologies.
These firms expect a commensurate return on investment
(ROI) from I/U relationships by advancing a variety of new
technologies.
Targeted players accounted for 32% of the firms. Targeted
players have high levels of interactions and resource commitments and generate high levels of tangible outcomes. We
found a high proportion of smaller firms in this cluster with
a strategic time horizon that tends to be primarily short-term.
Targeted players are overwhelmingly in high technology and
capital intensive industries, and their major focus is on advancing core technologies used to address immediate issues
related to the firm’s primary business. To help focus on these
issues, the use of supplementary consulting arrangements is
widespread among this group. Since these firms are often
small and the issues pursued central to the business, ROI
expectations are fairly immediate.
To complete our analysis, we differentiated the university
research centers associated with the different firm clusters.
The firm’s responses were aggregated by university centers,
making the 21 university centers the unit of analysis. Again,
both hierarchical and nonhierarchical clustering techniques
were employed.
Table II shows that the 21 research centers grouped into
two distinct clusters. Cluster 1 consists predominantly of
university research centers affiliated with Tier 1 and Tier 2
institutions.2 The firms in this cluster are primarily largesized collegial and aggressive players. Cluster 2 consists
predominantly of university research centers affiliated with
Tier 2, Tier 3, and Tier 4 institutions. The firms in this cluster
tend to be a mixture of large- and small-sized aggressive
2The 1999 U.S. News and World Report rankings were used for this
analysis.
SANTORO AND CHAKRABARTI: OBJECTIVES FOR ESTABLISHING RELATIONSHIPS WITH UNIVERSITY RESEARCH CENTERS
161
TABLE I
PROFILE OF INDUSTRIAL FIRM CLUSTER GROUPINGS
TABLE II
PROFILE OF UNIVERSITY RESEARCH CENTER CLUSTER GROUPINGS
and targeted players. Upon close examination we found that
the firms in Cluster 1 are more networked-oriented. That is,
these firms are attracted by the university center’s higher
ranking and prestige and believe this will help provide them
with access to leading-edge knowledge and technologies. In
contrast, Cluster 2 represents firms that are more problemoriented where the focus is more on applied initiatives. More
specifically, the overriding objective for these firms is to use
I/U relationships to advance new technologies, particularly on
immediate issues central to the firm’s primary business.
V. DISCUSSION
A. Conclusions and Implications
The firms in our study appear to have three distinct strategic
objective profiles. Collegial players are primarily large firms
whose long-term strategic time horizon allows them to focus
mainly on relationship building. Collegial players establish I/U
relationships as a way to be aware of and to influence pre-competitive research. Being involved in university-based consortia
is important to these firms since technical information can easily
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT, VOL. 48, NO. 2, MAY 2001
be exchanged with other industrial firm members. Moreover,
university-based consortia provide opportunities for these firms
to create additional interorganizational networks. Finally, collegial players leverage their I/U relationships to influence the
university’s curriculum and training agenda.
Aggressive players are a mix of both large and small firms
whose primary interest is to use I/U relationships to help the
firm advance both core and noncore technologies. Building
and strengthening the firm’s skills and knowledge, as well as
gaining access to university facilities, are key strategic drivers
for achieving the firm’s goals. In contrast, targeted players
are predominately small firms concentrating on creating new
core technologies for addressing immediate problems central
to their business. Since the strategic time horizon for targeted
players is primarily short-term, I/U relationships must hold the
promise of providing a fairly immediate payback.
The fit between the firm’s strategic objectives and the nature of a university center determines the decision for establishing I/U relationships. That is, certain firms establish relationships with research centers affiliated with more prestigious
institutions because these centers offer firms an entry into distinguished and potentially beneficial interorganizational networks.
In contrast, other firms are much more interested in using I/U
relationships to solve specific problems. These firms appear to
establish relationships with research centers affiliated with less
prestigious institutions since these centers tend to focus on more
applied initiatives. While the results of this study indicate that
the ranking and reputation of the university may influence the
establishment of these alliances, the long-term implications of
these distinctions requires further examination.
From the university research center directors’ perspective
these results suggest that there are a variety of diverse strategic
objectives driving industrial firms to partner with research
centers. By targeting certain key areas, university research
center directors can use this knowledge to possibly establish
more industrial partnerships and/or raise the intensity levels
of existing relationships. Considering the increasing financial
pressures that universities and university research centers currently experience, these initiatives may prove quite beneficial
[15], [30].
For industrial firm managers, our findings have implications
in the area of benchmarking. For example, this study points out
that many firms join university-based consortia to be privy to
cutting-edge technologies, emerging trends, and best practices.
Moreover, industrial firms don’t all pursue I/U relationships for
the same reasons, rather, a variety of strategic motives exist.
While the specific I/U relationship strategies uncovered in this
study may not capture the universe for all firms, our typology
illuminates a wide-ranging array of strategic possibilities.
B. Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research
While this study deepens and broadens our current knowledge, our investigation has limitations. A key limitation has
to do with perspective. Since our primary focus was on the
industrial firm, we did not concentrate on the university research center’s strategic objectives and how these may actually
fit with those of the industrial community. We think this can
be a fruitful line of investigation. However, an examination of
research center objectives and their fit with industry requires a
different focus and research design than was employed in this
study.
Second, we concentrated on I/U relationships within the context of university research centers here in the U.S. Although this
provided us with a rich and diverse sample of firms in an array
of various I/U relationships, this largely confined our study to a
certain model. A similar study examining this phenomenon in
an even broader sample of I/U collaborative ventures located in
a variety of different countries could serve to further extend and
enhance these findings.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank G. Farris at Rutgers University and S. Fenster and D. Hawk at the New Jersey Institute
of Technology for their help in this research. They appreciate
the support by D. Kocaoglu at Portland State University and the
anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this paper.
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Michael D. Santoro received the MBA degree and
Ph.D. degree in organization management from Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ.
He is currently an Assistant Professor of management at the College of Business and Economics,
Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA. He previously
spent 21 years with Automatic Data Processing, Inc.
(ADP), Roseland, NJ, in a variety of line and staff
management positions including Regional Vice President of Client Relations/Operations and Divisional
Director of Strategic and Product Planning on ADP’s
corporate headquarters staff. He is active in several divisions of the Academy
of Management and serves as an ad hoc reviewer for a number of leading
academic journals and transactions. His research interests are in organizational
strategy, entrepreneurship, and the external sourcing of knowledge and new
technologies. His recent papers in the Journal of Engineering and Technology
Management (JET-M), Journal of High Technology Management Research and
Journal of Technology Transfer, are related to his current article, as all focus
on the role of industry–university collaboration in advancing knowledge and
new technologies.
Dr. Santoro is a reviewer for the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENGINEERING
MANAGEMENT.
163
Alok K. Chakrabarti (M’92–SM’95) is the
founding dean at the School of Industrial Management at New Jersey Institute of Technology,
Newark, where he holds the position of Distinguished Professor and the Chair in Management of
Technology. He is also affiliated with the graduate
faculty of management at Rutgers University, New
Brunswick, NJ. His research encompasses many
aspects of technology management at micro and
macro levels. His articles have appeared in many
journals in the U.S. and Europe. His current research focuses on the university
industry interaction and how the educational organizations are changing with
the changes in fiscal policies. His interest in education includes management of
secondary education as exemplified in his active role as a school board member
in his county and the New Jersey School Board Association.