Relation-Building Process in University-Industry Joint Research

Abstract

While the number of university-industry joint researches has been increasing steadily, there are various obstacles for relationship building between them due to differences in organizational culture and mission. These obstacles sometimes influence success or failure of joint research, so it is essential to establish and maintain appropriate inter-organizational relationship to overcome them and obtain expected results. In prior researches regarding with university-industry collaboration, relation-building process such as communication, understanding and trust is pointed out to play an important role to build good relationship and improve research performance. As a result of analysis using a grounded theory approach for interview survey data with 15 university-industry collaboration experts, I found three points are important in conducting joint research, (1) relation-building process considering organizational hierarchy, (2) dealing with uncertainties under respect with the other party, (3) evaluating results of joint research from a social perspective.