How to capture value from linking to science-driven basic research: boundary crossing inventors and partnerships.

Surprisingly little is known about the actual process of how firms engage in accessing and translating science-driven basic knowledge and turning this into improved applied research productivity. We study this process focused around a research corporation in the microelectronics and semiconductor industry. We show that firms which have a partnership with the research organization where at the same time inventors cross from the research organization into the firm develop higher quality technologies drawing on the basic research knowledge from the research organization. These same firms also spend more effort internally developing these initial technologies into more applied technologies capturing more value from these interactions with science-driven basic knowledge.

‘Get yourself some nice, neat, matching box files’: research administrators and occupational identity work

To date, qualitative research into occupational groups and cultures within academia has been relatively scarce, with an almost exclusive concentration upon teaching staff within universities and colleges. This article seeks to address this lacuna and applies the interactionist concept of ‘identity work’ in order to examine one specific group to date under-researched: graduate research administrators. This occupational group is of sociological interest as many of its members appear to span the putative divide between ‘academic’ and ‘administrative’ occupational worlds within higher education. An exploratory, qualitative research project was undertaken, based upon interviews with 27 research administrators. The study analyses how research administrators utilise various forms of identity work to sustain credible occupational identities, often in the face of considerable challenge from their academic colleagues

When does centrality matter? Scientific productivity and the moderating role of research specialization and cross-community ties

The present study addresses the ongoing debate concerning academic scientific productivity. Specifically, given the increasing number of collaborations in academia and the crucial role networks play in knowledge creation, we investigate the extent to which building social capital within the academic community represents a valuable resource for a scientist's knowledge-creation process. We measure the social capital in terms of structural position within the academic collaborative network. Furthermore, we analyse the extent to which an academic scientist's research specialization and ties that cross-community boundaries act as moderators of the aforementioned relationship. Empirical results derived from an analysis of an Italian academic community from 2001 to 2008 suggest academic scientists that build social capital by occupying central positions in the community outperform their more isolated colleagues. However, scientific productivity declines beyond a certain threshold value of centrality, hence revealing the existence of an inverted U-shaped relationship. This relationship is negatively moderated by the extent to which an academic focuses research activities in few scientific knowledge domains, whereas it is positively moderated by the number of cross-community ties established

China media research: The trans-disciplinary challenge

This paper addresses the permeability of the field of China media research, its openness to new ideas; it argues that we need to adopt a wide angle view on research opportunities. Expansion of China’s media during the past decade has opened up possibilities for broadening of the field. The discussion first identifies boundary tensions as the field responds to transdisciplinary knowledge; in the second part the paper addresses challenges faced by Chinese researchers or visiting scholars in ‘Western’ media environments. Finally the paper addresses what a wide angle perspective might include

The impact of marketisation on postgraduate career preparedness in a high skills economy

This study focuses on the consequences for high skills development of the erosion of the once clear demarcation between higher education and business. It contributes to the broader debate about the relevance of higher education for thewell-being of the society of the future. The research explores the effects of marketisation on the postgraduate curriculum and students’ preparedness for careers in public relations and marketing communications. Interviews with lecturers and students in two universities in the UK and Australia indicate that a tension exists between academic rigour and corporate relevancy. The consequences are a diminution of academic attachment to critique and wider social/cultural engagement, with a resulting impoverishment of students’ creative abilities and critical consciences. Subsequently, graduates of public relations and marketing communications, and to some extent those from other profession-related disciplines, are insufficiently prepared for careers as knowledge workers in a future high-skills economy

Impactful learning: exploring the value of informal learning experiences to improve the learning potential of international research projects.

The Horizon 2020 (H2020) is the largest EU funded research programme, which supports mobility of international researchers through secondments to engage in collaborative research activities to enhance individual and collective research capacity within the EU. This paper explores how an analysis of secondees’ informal learning experiences can highlight opportunities for increasing individual and collective learning capacity of an international partnership and achievement of project objectives. A thematic analysis method (Miles and Huberman, 1994), was applied to 19 secondee’s individual learning reports. The main findings discussed three themes elicited through secondees informal learning, including living and working in a host country and developing an academic career. The paper outlines practice, policy and research implications for improving the learning potential of international research projects

Disagreements and Intra-Industry Spinoffs

A growing empirical literature on spinoff formation has begun to reveal some striking regularities about which firms are most likely to spawn spinoffs, when they are most likely to spawn them, and the relationship between the quality of the parent firm and its spinoffs. Deeper investigations into the causes of spinoffs have highlighted the importance of strategic disagreements in driving some employees to resign and found a new venture. Motivated by this literature, we construct a new theory of spinoff formation driven by strategic disagree-ments, and explore how well it explains the emerging empirical regularities.Spinoffs, learning, strategic disagreement