Industry Academia Collaboration in the Context of Open Innovation: Empirical Evidence from Pakistan

Abstract

Industry & academia are building pillars of a country’s knowledge base economy. Industry focus is on practical significance while role of academia is to disseminate knowledge. Although they seem different in their focus; however, there are similarities for innovation-based partnerships. Once Industry & Academia are embedded in the notion of “open innovation”, both parties can benefit from collaboration. This is a quantitative study in which drawing upon resource dependence theory, a framework is developed for collaborating factors between industry and academia in the context of Pakistan. Sample from industry and academia is studied using survey instrument and impact of collaboration is measured on magnitude and level of innovation. LISREL based modeling technique is used for quantitatively analyzing proposed framework. Two questions are addressed in this study; What are the antecedents of industry and academia to collaborate in the context of open innovation, and the impact of collaboration on magnitude and level of innovation? This study contains key implications for education sector, industry and policy makers for enhancement of knowledge base in Pakistan .