Universities as Internationalization Catalysts: Reversing Roles in University–Industry Collaboration
| Published date | 01 October 2023 |
| Author | Simone Corsi,Feranita Feranita,Mat Hughes,Alex Wilson |
| Date | 01 October 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.12676 |
British Journal of Management, Vol. 34, 1992–2014 (2023)
DOI: 10.1111/1467-8551.12676
Universities as Internationalization
Catalysts: Reversing Roles in
University–Industry Collaboration
Simone Corsi,1Feranita Feranita,2Mat Hughes1and Alex Wilson3
1School of Business and Economics, Loughborough University, LE11 3TU, Loughborough, United Kingdom,
2School of Management and Marketing, Taylor’s University Lakeside Campus, Selangor Darul Ehsan No. 1,
Jalan Taylor’s, 47500 Subang Jaya, Malaysia, and 3Queen’s ManagementSchool, Q ueen’s University Belfast,
Belfast, United Kingdom
Corresponding author: email: s.corsi@lboro.ac.uk
University–industry (U-I) collaboration is vital to the development of society. However,
this important interaction has become something of a caricature whereby a sequential
and unidirectional relationship exists,with universities creating knowledge and industries
commercializing it. We address this issue by using the triple helix (TH) perspective and
the network-revised Uppsala model of internationalization to demonstrate how this rela-
tionship can be reversed. Wepresent an embedded longitudinal case study of a UK–China
innovation programme, run by a UK university with the aim of supporting the develop-
ment of 62 collaborative innovation projectsbetween 58 UK small and medium enterprises
and Chinese organizations. The results reveal a pressing need to revisituniversities’ third
mission: the transfer of academic knowledge to industry.The ndings demonstrate univer-
sities’ role as internationalization catalysts for rms engaged in U-I collaboration. This
signals an important and underexplored component of the TH perspective. The knowl-
edge exchange type in U-I relationships shows a possible reversal in rm and university
roles, where knowledge and technology are contributed by rms, and access to markets
is orchestrated by universities, which become internationalization platforms.
Introduction
The mission and role in society of universities
have been actively discussed over the pastxbrk
20 years. Scholars have questioned whether uni-
versities should behave as temples of knowledge,
maintaining the so-called ‘ivory tower’, whereby
their rst two missions—research and teaching—
are legitimate ends in themselves, or whether they
should serve society by making knowledge as ‘con-
sumable’as possible, thereby promoting social and
economic gains. In policy terms,governments have
emphasized the latter view by foregrounding the
notion of universities’ third mission: a requirement
to demonstrate their entrepreneurial contribution
to society and their ‘worth’ in terms of public ex-
penditure (Compagnucci and Spigarelli, 2020).
As universities haveengaged more with industry,
their strategies,operations, and role in society have
evolved into entrepreneurial (Clark,1998; Ferreira
et al., 2018) and adaptive universities(Sporn, 2001;
Thomas, Wilson and Lee,2022). This evolution
has especially affected universities’ strategies along
two dimensions. First, universitiescompete world-
wide to recruit and work with the best talents
at faculty and student levels. This has forced the
higher education system increasingly to expand its
outreach activities to establish outposts, branches,
or campuses abroad (C-BERT, 2017). Such inter-
nationalization has been reinforced by the need to
tap into local pockets of knowledge and exper-
tise in foreign countries to enable unique interna-
tional collaborations for research (Chen, Zhang
and Fu, 2019). Second, as universities have been
© 2022 The Authors.British Journal of Management published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf ofBritish Academy
of Management.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distri-
bution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Universities as Internationalization Catalysts1993
asked to ‘give back’ to society by national govern-
ment and funding bodies, the rangeofmechanisms
through which academic engagement takes place
has widened substantially in the past few decades
(Perkmann et al., 2013, 2021). From simple meth-
ods, such as executive education programmes, to
more complex instruments of knowledge exchange
(KE) and transfer, the university–industry (U-I)
collaboration landscape has grown exponentially
and is now considered one of the pillars ofeco-
nomic development (Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff,
2000; Lundvall, 2010). These two elements have
been particularly impactful for small and medium
enterprises (SMEs), which have benetted from
being part of a global university network (Youtie
and Shapira et al., 2008). However, precisely how
and under which conditions SMEs havebenetted
from this is unclear. Furthermore, the advent of
universities’ ‘third mission’ has paralleled forces of
massive globalization and international trade. De-
spite this, the international dimension has largely
been neglected in studies on U-I collaboration,and
it is unclear whether it impacts the relationship be-
tween the two agents. Therefore, we ask the fol-
lowing question. HowdoSMEsbenetfromtheir
insidership in a global university network, and how
does this impact U-I interorganizational relations?
Siegel and Wright (2015) argued that the nexus
between research and the universities’ third mis-
sion should be reconsidered to take into account
the maturation ofuniversities’ strategies for en-
gagement with industry and a funding policy envi-
ronment thatmay alter their intended contributory
role. Doing so can help in the better articulation
ofthe ‘nebulous andambiguous’ third mission
of universities (Compagnucci and Spigarelli, 2020:
p.18).The triple helix (TH) perspective sees univer-
sities as creators of knowledge, science, and tech-
nology that industry commercializes (Etzkowitz
and Leydesdorff, 2000). However, by accounting
for internationalization network effects (Johanson
and Vahlne, 2009), we reason that universities’ in-
ternational reach creates new forms ofU-I collab-
oration towards fullling their third mission.
We conducted a longitudinal embedded case
study of a UK–China innovation programme
(UKCIP) run by a UK university (UKU) be-
tween 2014 and 2018. Funded by UK national
and regional governments, the programme aimed
to facilitate research and development (R&D)
partnerships between UK SMEs and Chinese or-
ganizations. Data collected and analysed included
62 collaborative innovation projects for 58 UK
SMEs introduced to potential R&D collaborators
in China.
We offer two main contributions to the man-
agement literature. First, building on the TH lit-
erature, we reveal a novel type of U-I collabo-
ration that includes an international dimension,
challenging the traditional roles of universities
and rms in the TH model and U-I collabora-
tion. The traditional TH model foresees exchanges
traditionally intended as sequential and unidirec-
tional, in which universities provide knowledge
that is then commercialized by industry. How-
ever,our case study demonstrates these roles be-
ing reversed, conguring a new role for universities
that foresees a function as a foreign market access
provider. Second, building on universities’ evolv-
ing role depicted by Etzkowitz, Schuler and Gul-
brandsen (2000) and conceptualizing their role in
the network-revised Uppsala internationalization
theory (Johanson and Vahlne, 2009), we delineate
two new university roles: internationalization cat-
alysts and internationalization platforms for rms
engaged in U-I collaboration, prompting collabo-
rative innovation.
Our contributions reposition universities as
knowledge generators, as creators ofmarket op-
portunities, and as mitigators ofSMEs’ liabili-
ties of outsidership through their international net-
work and reputation, challenging the notion of
universities solely as receptacles of knowledge and
resources. We identify the international dimension
as a crucial factor for entrepreneurial universities
wishing to full their roles in fostering economic
development and innovationcapability, as concep-
tualized in the TH model.
Theoretical background
The TH and U-I collaboration
Universities, along with government institutions
and enterprises, play an essential role in fostering
economic growth at a systemic level. The inter-
action and collaboration among these three main
actors are the focus of several streams of liter-
ature, including the national innovation system
(Freeman, 1995; Lundvall, 2010), the regional
innovation system (Cooke, Gomez Uranga and
Etxebarria, 1997), and the TH (Etzkowitzand Ley-
desdorff, 2000; Leydesdorff and Etzkowitz, 1996).
While in the rst instance, the system’s centrality
© 2022 The Authors.British Journal ofManagement published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British
Academy of Management.
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