A Research On The Relationship Among Partner Fit,knowledge Sharing And Cooperation Performance In University-industry Collaboration

In the era of knowledge-based economy,fast-paced global competition and technological change add more significance and broader prospects to the university-industry collaboration(UIC)not only to discover and produce new knowledge and new technologies but also to aid in knowledge industrialization.So UIC is considered to be one of the engines for innovation.How to improve the UIC performance effectively is the common concerned issue in both theory and practice.UIC has experienced more than 20 years' development in our country,although a series of successful experiences have been accumulated in practice and fruitful research results have also been obtained in academia,however,it is undeniable that there are still a lot of cases of failure in practice,and there is still room for further exploring in the academic research.For example,in practice,our country's enterprises and universities or research institutions,due to the misfit of partner selection at the beginning of cooperation,or the lack of in-depth knowledge sharing in the process of research cooperation,have led to the problem of failing to achieve the expected cooperation performance,which has been puzzling the practical circles.In the academic field,most of the existing studies take the unidirectional knowledge transfer from universities or public research institutions to enterprises as the precondition of research,and on the basis of which most studies focus on the two parties' respective characteristics and their differences,and then discuss the knowledge transfer's influencing factors,governance mechanism and policy design,etc.However,for the UIC situation,which is essentially characterized by knowledge flow and sharing,how to achieve the fit of cooperative elements to the maximum extent while acknowledging the differences between the two parties,and then to explore the influence of fit of different cooperative elements of both parties on the knowledge sharing and cooperation performance,the existing studies have not yet provided a systematic solution,which makes our country's enterprises and universities or research institutions lack of pertinent theoretical guidance and empirical support when face problems in cooperation practice,such as the misfit of partner selection at the beginning of cooperation,insufficient knowledge sharing in process of cooperation,low performance of cooperation results and so on.This paper faces the above problems in the practice of our country's UIC and the research gap in the current academia,takes the problem of the source of cooperation(problem of partner fit)as the starting point for research,and based on the understanding of essential characteristics of UIC— knowledge flow and sharing between two paties,we centre on the core issue of “The Mechanism of Partner Fit How to Affect the Cooperation Performance” and set up the basic logical framework of “partner fit(the beginning of cooperation)— knowledge sharing(cooperative behavior process)—cooperation performance(cooperation outcomes)”,namely,we build a complete influence path from the source of cooperation to the outcome of the cooperation.On the basis of it the multiple proof methods(e.g.multi-case study,theory deduction,empirical statistical test)are implemented step by step to study and answer the following questions:(1)How to define partner fit in UIC? What dimensions are partner fit specifically included? How to measure this concept?(2)What is the influence mechanism of partner fit on cooperation performance in UIC? What is the relationship between them?(3)What is the impact of knowledge sharing between the partners on cooperation performance? And what roles will it play in the relationship between partner fit and cooperation performance? Through the analysis and demonstration of this paper,the main conclusions are as follows:(1)In the context of UIC,the concept of partner fit refers to the alignment state in terms of the characteristics of the cooperation elements between the enterprise and its academic partner.Combined with theory deduction,multi-case interpretation,and the specific context of UIC,the concept of partner fit is divided into three dimensions: goal synergy,cultural compatibility and complementarity of innovative resources/capabilities.The measurement indexes are designed respectively,which lays a foundation for further empirical research.(2)The three dimensions of partner fit—goal synergy,cultural compatibility and complementarity of innovative resources/capabilities all have the positive effects on cooperation performance,but there are differences in impact intensity.Specifically,the impact of complementarity of innovative resources/capabilities on cooperation performance is greater than that of goal synergy and cultural compatibility.(3)Both the explicit and tacit knowledge sharing between the partners are driven by the three dimensions of the partner fit,and both of them have a significant positive impact on the cooperation performance.The effect of tacit knowledge sharing on cooperation performance is greater than that of explicit knowledge sharing.(4)In the context of UIC,explicit knowledge sharing between the partners can promote tacit knowledge sharing.(5)Both explicit and tacit knowledge sharing between the partners play an important mediating role in the influence of partner fit on cooperation performance.Specifically,explicit knowledge sharing and tacit knowledge sharing play a complete mediating role in the relationship between goal synergy,cultural compatibility and cooperation performance;and explicit knowledge sharing and tacit knowledge sharing play a partial mediating role in the relationship of innovation resources/capabilities complementarity and cooperation performance.Based on the existing researches,this paper has done some exploratory work,and the main contributions are as follows:(1)On the basis of combing and refining the concept connotation of partner fit,this paper analyzes the structure dimension of partner fit in the context of UIC and designs the corresponding measurement scales,which will help to depict the essential connotation and key characteristics of partner fit in the context of UIC.It is also a useful supplement and extension to the concept of partner fit,thus providing a basic support for further theoretical and empirical research on the partner fit and selection in UIC.(2)Taking the problem of the source of cooperation(partner selection misfit)as the starting point for research,this paper from the perspective of partner fit,discusses its influencing mechanism on the knowledge sharing and cooperation performance between partners,which is a new application of the concept of "partner fit" from the context of enterprise strategic alliance to the context of UIC,also provides and opens up a new perspective and train of thought for the study of knowledge sharing and cooperation performance in UIC.(3)This paper has found out the inherent laws of the relationship among partner fit,knowledge sharing and cooperation performance in UIC,and has revealed and validated the mediating mechanism of knowledge sharing between partners in the impact of partner fit on cooperation performance,which has opened the "black box" of impact mechanism of the partner fit on cooperation performance.It will enrich and expand the literatures of interorganization knowledge sharing in the field of UIC.