Creating and Capturing Value in Public-Private Ties: A Private Actor's Perspective

Abstract: The collaboration between universities and the industry is increasingly perceived as a vehicle to enhance innovation through knowledge exchange. This is evident by a significant increase in studies that investigate the topic from different perspectives. However, this body of knowledge is still described as fragmented and lacks efficient comprehensive view. To address this gap, we employed a systematic procedure to review the literature on universities-industry collaboration (UIC). The review resulted in identifying five key aspects, which underpinned the theory of UIC. We integrate these key aspects into an overarching process framework, which together with the review, provide a substantial contribution by creating an integrated analysis of the state of literature concerning this phenomenon. Several research avenues are reported as distilled from the analysis.

Abstract: Academic entrepreneurship, which refers to efforts undertaken by universities to promote commercialization on campus and in surrounding regions of the university, has changed dramatically in recent years. Two key consequences of this change are that more stakeholders have become involved in academic entrepreneurship and that universities have become more ‘strategic’ in their approach to this activity. The authors assert that the time is ripe to rethink academic entrepreneurship. Specifically, theoretical and empirical research on academic entrepreneurship needs to take account of these changes, so as to improve the rigour and relevance of future studies on this topic. We outline such a framework and provide examples of key research questions that need to be addressed to broaden understanding of academic entrepreneurship.

Abstract: The systematic tendency toward underprovision of a public good that seems to be implied by the model of Nash-Cournot equilibrium has encouraged extensive analysis of alternative allocative mechanisms and their evaluation against the yardstick provided by the set of Pareto-efficient allocations. The aim of this chapter, which is necessarily highly selective, is to review some of this large and varied literature. We begin with a closer look at the set of Pareto-efficient, or Paretooptimal, allocations. Pareto-optimal provision of public goods In the public goods economy, just as in its private goods counterpart, the optimality criterion typically identifies not one, but an infinite number of allocations – all the points on the utility possibilities frontier between R and S in Figure 7.1. Any discussion of “the optimum” must presuppose either a very special structure, so that there is, indeed, a single optimal level of Q associated with every allocation along the frontier RS , or else the introduction of some kind of social welfare function that enables us to rank optima and pick out the optimum optimorum. Economists have, however, often expressed and relied upon the hope that certain allocation decisions can be made without reference to distributional considerations. In the present context, this is reflected in many treatments that refer to the optimal level of provision of a public good without any explicit assumption concerning the distribution of private goods and hence of utility.

Abstract: Governments around the world, but especially in Europe, have increasingly used private sector involvement in developing, financing and providing public health infrastructure and service delivery through public–private partnerships (PPPs). Reasons for this uptake are manifold ranging from rising expenditures for refurbishing, maintaining and operating public assets, and increasing constraints on government budgets stifle, seeking innovation through private sector acumen and aiming for better risk management. Although PPPs have attracted practitioner and academic interest over the last two decades, there has been no attempt to integrate the general and health management literature to provide a holistic view of PPPs in healthcare delivery. This study analyzes over 1400 publications from a wide range of disciplines over a 20-year time period. We find that despite the scale and significance of the phenomenon, there is relatively limited conceptualization and in-depth empirical investigation. Based on bibliographic and content analyses, we synthesize formerly dispersed research perspectives into a comprehensive multi-dimensional framework of public-private partnerships. In so doing, we provide new directions for further research and practice.

Abstract: Porter and Kramer (Harv Bus Rev 84(12):78–92, 2006; Harv Bus Rev 89(1/2), 62–77, 2011) introduced ‘shared value’ as a ‘new conception of capitalism,’ claiming it is a powerful driver of economic growth and reconciliation between business and society. The idea has generated strong interest in business and academia; however, its theoretical precepts have not been rigorously assessed. In this paper, we provide a systematic and thorough analysis of shared value, focusing on its ontological and epistemological properties. Our review highlights that ‘shared value’ has spread into the language of multiple disciplines, but that its current conceptualization is vague, and it presents important discrepancies in the way it is defined and operationalized, such that it is more of a buzzword than a substantive concept. It also overlaps with many other (related) concepts and lacks empirical grounding. We offer recommendations for defining and measuring the concept, take a step toward disentangling it from related concepts, and identify relevant theories and research methods that would facilitate extending the knowledge frontier on shared value.

Abstract: Continuing his groundbreaking analysis of economic structures, Douglass North develops an analytical framework for explaining the ways in which institutions and institutional change affect the performance of economies, both at a given time and over time. Institutions exist, he argues, due to the uncertainties involved in human interaction; they are the constraints devised to structure that interaction. Yet, institutions vary widely in their consequences for economic performance; some economies develop institutions that produce growth and development, while others develop institutions that produce stagnation. North first explores the nature of institutions and explains the role of transaction and production costs in their development. The second part of the book deals with institutional change. Institutions create the incentive structure in an economy, and organisations will be created to take advantage of the opportunities provided within a given institutional framework. North argues that the kinds of skills and knowledge fostered by the structure of an economy will shape the direction of change and gradually alter the institutional framework. He then explains how institutional development may lead to a path-dependent pattern of development. In the final part of the book, North explains the implications of this analysis for economic theory and economic history. He indicates how institutional analysis must be incorporated into neo-classical theory and explores the potential for the construction of a dynamic theory of long-term economic change. Douglass C. North is Director of the Center of Political Economy and Professor of Economics and History at Washington University in St. Louis. He is a past president of the Economic History Association and Western Economics Association and a Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has written over sixty articles for a variety of journals and is the author of The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History (CUP, 1973, with R.P. Thomas) and Structure and Change in Economic History (Norton, 1981). Professor North is included in Great Economists Since Keynes edited by M. Blaug (CUP, 1988 paperback ed.)

Abstract: The population problem has no technical solution; it requires a fundamental extension in morality.

Abstract: Part I. The Stakeholder Approach: 1. Managing in turbulent times 2. The stakeholder concept and strategic management 3. Stakeholder management: framework and philosophy Part II. Strategic Management Processes: 4. Setting strategic direction 5. Formulating strategies for stakeholders 6. Implementing and monitoring stakeholder strategies Part III. Implications for Theory and Practice: 7. Conflict at the board level 8. The functional disciplines of management 9. The role of the executive.

Abstract: This paper considers the relation between the exploration of new possibilities and the exploitation of old certainties in organizational learning. It examines some complications in allocating resources between the two, particularly those introduced by the distribution of costs and benefits across time and space, and the effects of ecological interaction. Two general situations involving the development and use of knowledge in organizations are modeled. The first is the case of mutual learning between members of an organization and an organizational code. The second is the case of learning and competitive advantage in competition for primacy. The paper develops an argument that adaptive processes, by refining exploitation more rapidly than exploration, are likely to become effective in the short run but self-destructive in the long run. The possibility that certain common organizational practices ameliorate that tendency is assessed.