How Social Capital Mitigate Collaboration Challenges in University-Industry Research Alliances: A Longitudinal Case Study

Universities and public research organizations (PROs) are valuable knowledge sources for firms in innovation development. However, differences in goals and approaches between firms and PROs create tensions and lead to challenges in achieving fruitful collaborations. This paper explores how the development of cognitive and social capital can mitigate such challenges between firms and PROs in research alliances and facilitate effective collaboration over time. By comparing one well-established and one emerging research alliance, I find that it take time to build successful collaboration between firms and PROs and that the success highly depends on cognitive and relational social capital. Common goals and understanding about the collaboration as well as creation of personal relations between firms and PROs mitigates collaboration challenges and thereby lead to better collaboration performance over time. Moreover, it appears necessary that at least one of the social capital dimensions is present when entering a research alliance for a fruitful collaboration to be developed.