Empirical analysis of the key factors that can contribute to university-industry cooperational success from a relationship marketing approach

This paper focuses on the analysis of university-industry collaborations partnering for research agreements with the aim of fostering the transfer of knowledge and innovation. It analyses the key organisational factors that could contribute to the successful performance of these agreements from a relationship marketing perspective. More precisely, it examines the impact of relevant relationship variables - trust, commitment and integration - on university-industry cooperational success. Moreover, it also analyses the relevance that organisational compatibility and personal experience have as antecedents of these relationships. A structural equation model was proposed and tested. Results support that the key factors for firms to cooperate with universities are mainly the university-industry levels of integration, the level of university commitment towards firms and - to a lesser extent - the level of trust of a firm on the university counterpart. Therefore, this research will inform firm management seeking to develop successful research collaborations with universities.