Socioeconomic impacts of university-industry collaborations

Abstract

University-industry collaborations create socioeconomic impacts for the areas where they are undertaken. Although these collaborations have recognized the importance and a high potential to generate economic and social benefits, there is no consensus in the literature on a consolidated conceptual model for assessing their socioeconomic impacts. Given this context, this thesis aims to build a model to assess the direct socioeconomic impacts of university-industry collaborations and evaluate the Brazilian large firms. The research method was: a systematic literature review of 94 studies on the socioeconomic impacts realized using a Context-Intervention-Mechanism-Outputs (CIMO) configuration, a scale (questionnaire) was developed to measure the impacts sent to the companies in the "Ranking - 1500 Empresas + Estadão” of the 1,500 largest companies in Brazil organized by Fundação Instituto de Administração (FIA) and Austin Consulting. 210 complete and valid responses by innovation managers from companies that carry out formal collaborations with universities were collected. Multivariate data analysis was performed to simplify the model (factorial analysis) and identify the relational structure of the variables (canonical correlation). A socioeconomic impact model was built for large Brazilian companies, with impacts categorized as: Financial Benefits, Technological Innovation, Social and Community, and External Resource Management with 21 variables. There is a positive correlation between Technological Innovation and Financial Benefits: the “launch of new products” correlates with: “increase in sales” (approx. 0.659), “increase in exportations” (approx. 0.549), increase in “commercial value and corporate/ shareholder” (approx. 0.550), “revenue increase” (approx. 0.563) and “profit increase” (approx. 0.536). The “increase in sales” is also positively correlated with the “commercialization of new technologies” (approx. 0.617) and with the “development of new products, processes and services” (approx. 0.534). There is also a positive correlation between Social and Community, and External Resource Management: the "qualification of the professional workforce" is correlated with "the creation of new high-tech jobs", and between Social and Community, and Financial Benefits, “job creation” is positively correlated with “commercial and corporate shareholder value” (approx. 0.556). From a theoretical point of view, this work contributes to the structuring of a conceptual model for evaluating the socioeconomic impacts of university-industry collaborations. In addition, the results bring contributions to the management of each actor in the triple helix. These can be used to guide companies on how to measure the socioeconomic benefits of each partnership, instructing public agents in evaluating the results of investments made, and contributing to information on innovation policies and technology management.