Determinants of ICT Innovations: Lessons Learned from Sweden and Sri Lanka

Innovation is critical for enterprises and the country’s economy, and it has resulted in an improvement in living standards. There may be appropriate lessons to learn from other countries, but their adoption must be assessed due to education and living standards variations. This paper aims to build an in-depth understanding of the stimulating factors for ICT innovations from Sweden, and examines their adoption in the context of a developing country, Sri Lanka. ICT innovations significantly impact development in other sectors, as they can ease doing business and other essential services. This study is based on seven interviews, including key people leading innovation activities in Sweden. Then, it critically analyses and presents the application of stimulating factors in Sweden to the context of a developing country, namely Sri Lanka. The results indicate that education and mindset, a risk-taking environment, embracing failures, digitalisation and collaboration are the critical determinants of ICT innovations in Sweden. This research is vital for educational policymakers in universities, technology transfer offices, and governmental policymakers.

The Efficiency of University Technology Transfer in China

There has been no significant improvement in China's comprehensive innovation capability over the past decade despite the country's tremendously large investment in research and development. This study uses a three-stage procedure (i.e., research innovation, experimental development, and value creation) to understand this disappointing outcome by estimating the efficiency of the technology transfer operating through major Chinese universities. We find a substantial decrease in the average level of efficiency across the three stages, with the value creation stage identified as the weakest link. An analysis of the determinants suggests that universities with better faculty quality, experienced technology transfer offices, more affiliated investment funds, and a comprehensive rather than specialized focus perform better in all three stages.

Are Spanish TTOs Prepared to Innovation in a COVID Context?

The analysis of the characteristics of Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) is particularly important as they constitute mediating units in the relationship between the market and university research. They are responsible for the transfer and exploitation of knowledge arising in the university context. Previous studies have been inconclusive as to the importance that the size, professionalisation or age of TTOs might have on the transfer process. However, the need to explore new markets, recognise new opportunities and identify potential customers points to the importance of TTOs having a dual exploitative and exploratory orientation and an extensive relational network. More recent research in the literature, based on ambidexterity and network theory, points to the impact that these variables could have on change management and innovation in uncertain and changing environments, such as those faced by TTOs in the current pandemic context. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to analyse whether Spanish TTOs, due to their ambidextrous orientation at the organisational and individual level, and their relational network with academic and market actors, are prepared to promote innovation in a COVID-19 context. Based on a cluster analysis of 29 Spanish TTOs, our results show that just a few of the Spanish TTOs surveyed would be prepared, from the perspective of ambidexterity and their relational capital, to promote innovation in a COVID-19 context. In conclusion, Spanish TTOs and their employees should focus more on ambidexterity and building extensive relational capital so that, through mentoring, training, incubation or the provision of various resources, they can help academics take advantage of the innovation opportunities offered by the changing and uncertain environment.

University–industry collaboration: constructing a business model lab for student venture creation

PurposeThe study aims to examine the development of student venture creation in a co-curricular business model lab initiative with collaboration between students, researchers, technology transfer offices (TTO) and industry. It presents a fresh approach to the study of student venture creation by discussing a unique co-curricular case, its embeddedness in a network and drawing on the concept of tension.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative, case-based research design is applied containing data from interviews, observations and active participation.FindingsThe findings point to the inherent difficulties in managing and organizing student venture creation and networks surrounding the student venture creation in a co-curricular setting that can lead to several different types of tensions. Episodes where task-, role-, process-, affective- and value-related tensions arise are identified. Furthermore, the findings highlight that affective-related tension is often an outcome of other types of tensions.Research limitations/implicationsOur theoretical implications point to the importance of the context of student venture creation, but not only regarding curricular and co-curricular initiatives; depending on the context, such as if student surrogate entrepreneurship is used, different types of support structure might also be needed to enable student venture creation.Originality/valueResearch on the entrepreneurial university has mainly focused on entrepreneurship education and ventures created by researchers. This study responds to recent calls for research on the venture creation of students. The limited research conducted on student venture creation can be divided between curricular and co-curricular initiatives. Our research points out that many other contextual factors are of importance, such as the origin of ideas, student surrogate entrepreneurship, industry collaboration, team formation and expectations.