Evolution of intermediating activity between business, university and government - Case eBRC

Abstract

Hakutermit:

Business-University-Government context, intermediating, service management system

The society is going through development process which has created many challenges

to all the key sectors of society: business, university and government. Businesses have

to find ways to compete in global markets, universities are pressured to produce relevant

knowledge on currents trends and governments need to carry out policies that support

the ongoing development process. In the age of networking, the way to meet these

challenges is by cooperating. This has created a need for dedicated intermediating actors,

who facilitate interaction between the three sectors.

The purpose of this research was to increase our understanding of intermediating

activity between business, university and government. The idea for this thesis stemmed

from the involvement of the researcher in the case phenomenon and thus from an

adoption of a strong presunderstanding. The research was conducted as an inductive

action research to correspond to this background. The preunderstanding was supported

by theoretical analysis and the created framework was then applied to a case

organization thus producing a concluding proposition.

The Business-University-Government context is seen to be built from the main sectors

of the society, both public and private, and in addition, separating the universities from

the public sector. The intermediating activity is performed in organizations that operate

between research institutions and businesses and that have been created through public

financing to act as links between the different parties and facilitate the innovation

process. The intermediating per se and the roles that it possesses are seen to be dynamic

and dependent on the context.

The service management system model was chosen to support and lead the empirical

part of the research. The analysis of the case organization shows that operating in a new

and ill-defined area and pursuing ambitious goals offers many challenges to an

organization. To enable change and to act as a pioneer in an established institute,

resources and time are needed in order to create a coherent service management system.

For the case organization, the question is how to utilize and learn from the experience

and develop intermediating activity that best suits for the Business-University-

Government context. The research can be considered as descriptive and understanding

but the theoretical framework it has provided, could be utilized in similar kind of

researches.