| Enterprises and universities are two heterogeneous organizations with different resources endowments.The cooperation of these two organizations is confronted with new challenges as well as opportunities under the historical background of knowledge economy acceleration and open innovation prosperity.Meanwhile,knowledge has already gradually become the foremost assets in organizations.For the enterprises and universities in the Industry-University Knowledge Alliance,to obtain and create knowledge through inter-organizational learning so as to upgrade the core competence has been the major approach.However,the exterior knowledge appealing to the enterprises and universities is very often embedded into the social network and personal relationships.As a result,the regulation effects of the formal contracts would be rather restricted,while the embedded relationships play an important role in order to achieve excellent innovation performances for both the enterprises and the universities during the cooperation of the parties.Therefore,it would be of great theoretical and practical significance to start with the embedded relationships and inter-organizational learning in the Industry-University Knowledge Alliance to explore the functional mechanism of the innovation performance.The paper analyses the environmental elements of the Industry-University Knowledge Alliance from a systematical perspective:environmental elements make the significant contributing factors in the good Industry-University relationships between the heterogeneous organizations in the alliance,and also,in the inter-organizational learning mechanisms of high efficiency.targeting at the Chinese enterprises,universities as well as the corresponding alliances,the paper discusses the theories and the relevant cases of the industry-university cooperation,the knowledge alliances,the embedded relationships and the inter-organizational learning,and on top of which,the paper has constructed three embedded relationships,i.e.. "trust-dimension,resource-dimension and connection-dimension",together with the research model of their innovation performance relativity with enterprises and universities.With the inter-organizational learning as its intermediary variable,the model clarifies the key functional mechanisms of the various elements based on the research methods of theory deduction in depth,detailed case study.model construction and mathematical statistics. The conclusions of the paper are as follows:â… .The embedded relationship in the Industry-University Knowledge Alliance has a positive influence on the innovation performance of the enterprises and the universities.The paper examines the case study of the two Industry-University Knowledge Alliances in China,the field interview and investigation of over 40 related staff members,and 116 and 125 questionnaires from the enterprise and universities respectively,and all these indicate that a high degree of trust-dimension,resource dimension and connection dimension between the enterprises and the universities in the Knowledge Alliance would do great help to the upgrade of the innovation performance of the two parties.â…¡.The influence of the embedded relationship on the enterprises innovation performance functions indirectly through the "Knowledge Acquisition" and the "Knowledge Creation" of the "Inter-organizational learning".The higher the level of the embedded relationship in the Industry-University Knowledge Alliance, the better the effect for the knowledge acquisition and knowledge creation of the enterprise,hence,a stronger influence on the upgrade of the innovation performance.â…¢.The influence of the embedded relationship on the universities innovation performance functions indirectly through the "Knowledge Creation" of the "Inter-organizational learning",and there are distinct differences in the learning models of different disciplines in the alliance."Knowledge Creation" serves as the intermediary between the "trust-dimension,resource-dimension, connection-dimension" and the "university innovation performance" while the "Knowledge Acquisition" does not.The engineering disciplines mainly engaging in implicit knowledge present a learning model with a high level of interactions.While the learning model of the science disciplines mainly engaging in explicit knowledge mostly manifests a unidirectional transfer.â…£.A well-matched exterior supportive system is needed in order to construct a favorable cooperation mechanism in the Industry-University Knowledge Alliance.The embedded relationships could help to largely upgrade the inter-organizational learning efficiency in the Industry-University Knowledge Alliance.However,during the process,the environmental elements are indispensable: government,technological intermediates,financial institutions and so on.The supporting from these parties are the major exterior elements for the upgrading of the alliance innovation performance. As a conclusion,based on the theoretical analysis,the case study and the exemplar research,the paper clarifies the elements features and their functional mechanisms of the Industry-University Knowledge Alliance,and provides theoretical base and practical guidance for the establishment,maintenance and management of the cooperation as well as the learning mechanisms between enterprises and universities in the alliance.On the basis of that,the paper also proposes related policy suggestions for the perfection and sustainable development of the "Industry-University Knowledge Alliance" in China:(1)to promote the construction of the Industry-University Knowledge Alliance so as to enrich the strategic measures for an innovative country;(2) to give a full play of the collaboration of the national innovation system to exploit the maximum efficiency for the knowledge alliance;(3) to focus on the management of relationship capital to achieve the sustainable cooperation between the enterprises and the universities;(4) to construct a highly efficient inter-organizational learning model concerning the knowledge with diversified attributes. |
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