Doing well by doing good: A study of university-industry interactions, innovationess and firm performance in sustainability-oriented Australian SMEs
Jane Jones and
Graciela Corral de Zubielqui
Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2017, vol. 123, issue C, 262-270
Abstract:
Increased concerns about excessive resource consumption, environmental degradation and social inequity have led to calls for a transition toward a more sustainable economy and society. Against this background, the role of innovation in helping enterprises become more sustainable has received increasing attention in the academic literature. While cooperation with external actors is assumed to increase enterprises' capacity for sustainability-oriented innovation (SOI) there is a dearth of empirical studies to support this notion, particularly with regard to university–firm interactions. This is surprising, given the so-called “third mission” activities. The purpose of this study is to address this gap by examining the role and effect of university–firm interactions on innovation outcomes, and firm performance in SOI in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Using structural equation modelling to analyse a sample of 153 SMEs, we find that generic links in the form of human resource transfer have a significant positive effect on innovativeness, and innovativeness, in turn, is positively related to firm performance. Furthermore, human resource transfer affects firm performance through innovativeness. Therefore, this study supports the premise that developing human resource transfer via employing new graduates, providing graduates with further education and providing employees with vocational training generates performance benefits in the form of innovation outcomes, which in turn indirectly leads to productivity and sales growth in SOI in Australian SMEs. This research contributes to an improved understanding of the relationships between university–firm interactions, the innovation output, and firm performance in the context of SOI in SMEs adding to the emerging dialogue on the “third mission” activities of universities, and the business case for sustainability.
Keywords: University–firm interactions; Sustainability-oriented innovation; SMEs; Innovativeness; Firm performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)
Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162516301949
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:123:y:2017:i:c:p:262-270
DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2016.07.036
Access Statistics for this article
Technological Forecasting and Social Change is currently edited by Fred Phillips
More articles in Technological Forecasting and Social Change from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().