TY - BOOK

T1 - Microfoundations of University-Industry Collaborations

T2 - A Qualitative Exploration of Individuals’ Actions and Interactions

AU - Romanova, Gergana Petrova

PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - Knowing more about the individuals in university-industry collaborations, how they organize joint research and how they navigate through emerging tensions, can provide both new theoretical perspectives and practical solutions for developing impactful science and innovation. Therefore, in this thesis, I chose to explore the microfoundations that underpin university- industry collaborations by adopting an abductive approach, grounded in pragmatism. Aided by qualitative empirical material consisting of 108 semi-structured interviews and 180 hours of participant observations, pragmatism offered a considerable potential to explore the ongoing social practices of individuals in collaborations. The anti-dualistic stance of pragmatism, denying the separation of knowledge and action, allowed to explore the phenomena of university- industry collaboration as a ‘world-in-process’ and encouraged a dynamic iteration between theory, method, and data. Research on university-industry relations has already informed about many important aspects of collaboration such as barriers to success, motivations of individuals, and outcomes of joint research between university scientists and private organizations. Despite the breadth of studies on university-industry relations, relatively little is known about the everyday practices of individuals in collaborative research between university scientists and their private sector partners. Given that collaborations are processes based on interactions between individuals, I turn to the micro level to gain intimate insights of actors, actions, and interactions. While microfoundations could be understood in different ways, in this thesis, it refers to individual level constructs and informal mechanisms in university-industry collaborations. Understanding how individuals interact yields new insights into the macro-level phenomenon of university- industry relations by answering questions about how interactions of individuals can lead to emergent higher-level outcomes. The focus on microfoundations does not mean an exclusive focus on the individuals. It entails a view on individuals, their actions, and interactions, and how they relate to their corresponding levels of the team, organization, society. In this thesis, I argue that social and organizational structures of university-industry collaborations cannot be answered at the macro level, nor can they be approached by exclusively adopting a micro perspective. Therefore, my research cuts across multiple organizational levels and zooms in on the emergence and aggregation of microfoundations. Overall, this thesis contributes to a nuanced understanding of how university- industry collaborations are organized, managed, and practiced by focusing on the action and interactions of individuals.

AB - Knowing more about the individuals in university-industry collaborations, how they organize joint research and how they navigate through emerging tensions, can provide both new theoretical perspectives and practical solutions for developing impactful science and innovation. Therefore, in this thesis, I chose to explore the microfoundations that underpin university- industry collaborations by adopting an abductive approach, grounded in pragmatism. Aided by qualitative empirical material consisting of 108 semi-structured interviews and 180 hours of participant observations, pragmatism offered a considerable potential to explore the ongoing social practices of individuals in collaborations. The anti-dualistic stance of pragmatism, denying the separation of knowledge and action, allowed to explore the phenomena of university- industry collaboration as a ‘world-in-process’ and encouraged a dynamic iteration between theory, method, and data. Research on university-industry relations has already informed about many important aspects of collaboration such as barriers to success, motivations of individuals, and outcomes of joint research between university scientists and private organizations. Despite the breadth of studies on university-industry relations, relatively little is known about the everyday practices of individuals in collaborative research between university scientists and their private sector partners. Given that collaborations are processes based on interactions between individuals, I turn to the micro level to gain intimate insights of actors, actions, and interactions. While microfoundations could be understood in different ways, in this thesis, it refers to individual level constructs and informal mechanisms in university-industry collaborations. Understanding how individuals interact yields new insights into the macro-level phenomenon of university- industry relations by answering questions about how interactions of individuals can lead to emergent higher-level outcomes. The focus on microfoundations does not mean an exclusive focus on the individuals. It entails a view on individuals, their actions, and interactions, and how they relate to their corresponding levels of the team, organization, society. In this thesis, I argue that social and organizational structures of university-industry collaborations cannot be answered at the macro level, nor can they be approached by exclusively adopting a micro perspective. Therefore, my research cuts across multiple organizational levels and zooms in on the emergence and aggregation of microfoundations. Overall, this thesis contributes to a nuanced understanding of how university- industry collaborations are organized, managed, and practiced by focusing on the action and interactions of individuals.

M3 - Ph.D. thesis

BT - Microfoundations of University-Industry Collaborations

PB - Department of Food and Resource Economics, Faculty of Science, University of Copenhagen

ER -