Setting the three-stage R&D shared portfolio methodology: an innovative approach to industry-university collaboration.
| Autor | Bagno, Raoni Barros |
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Introduction
In the past few decades, innovation has acquired increasing importance for organizations, especially in industrial sectors, where technology plays a key role. In this context, the notion of inter-organizational collaboration has been dictating the pace of competitive advantages in companies (Enkel, Gassmann, & Chesbrough, 2009) and regions (Berman, 1990; Scandura, 2016). Since the term "open innovation" was coined by Chesbrough (2003), much effort has been reported on how to openly innovate in organizations. Despite that, the practice of industry-university (I-U) partnering is not recent: Cole (1959) argued that "Even in the great " self-contained industrial laboratories (...) there is always a need for the skills and knowledge possessed by others, and the university fills a unique niche." On his turn, Berman (1990) analyzes industry-funded university research and development (R&D) in American setting using data from 1953. On a larger scale, however, it can still be said that formal collaboration between universities and industries is a recent phenomenon (Lai, 2011).
Etzkowitz (2010) emphasizes that university-industry-government interactions are the key to innovation in increasingly knowledge-based societies. The central role of the university is to develop new knowledge and test its applicability. On the other hand, industries have real demands for which university resources are important ingredients to leverage the performance in innovation (Barnes, Pashby, & Gibbons, 2002; Berman, 1990; Scandura, 2016; Shane, 2004). This kind of cooperation can connect the network of university researchers to industry demands by several forms of interaction, such as direct transfer of intellectual property, consultancy, services, cooperative research centers, research consortia or R&D projects (Scandura, 2016).
The literature on the field is vast and somewhat recent: a search in the Web of Knowledge database on December 07,2021, showed 3,818 records for the topic ["industry-university" OR "university-industry"], out of which 2,828 were published over the past 15 years. A quick analysis over the titles and keywords of the first 100 records (listed by relevance) revealed 12 words that may summarize how industry and university work together (i) and 12 other words that may describe the reasons by which they get together (ii): (i) partnership, collaboration, contract, relation, engagement, interaction, network, connection, liaison, synergy, dynamic and link; (ii) patents, knowledge, research, R&D, startups, innovation, strategy, funding, entrepreneurship, efficiency, technology and learning.
Despite its importance, there are relevant barriers to implementing I-U collaborations effectively, e.g. differences in the pace of work, strategic and long-term vs operational and short-term focuses, institutional guidelines for the relationship or disparate research interests (Barnes et al., 2002; Belkhodja & Landry, 2007; Bruneel, d'Este, & Salter, 2010; Dagnino, 2009). Bruneel et al. (2010) list some points that reinforce the I-U relationship: (i) experience of collaboration, (ii) breadth of interaction channels and (iii) inter-organizational trust.
Aside from contractual issues related to universities' technology transfer offices (TTOs)--a bias that strongly marks the literature (Berbegal-Mirabent, Garcia, & Ribeiro-Soriano, 2015; Rajalo & Vadi, 2017), the clarity companies have on which technologies to invest in (those they could develop under collaborative work) is a relevant question that needs to be answered to boost I-U relations. In this context, the innovation management literature reveals some difficulties faced by companies in dealing with the preliminary stages of the innovation process (the so-called fuzzy front end (FFE)), typically those related to the efforts of pre-competitive R&D. These stages present higher levels of uncertainty, both concerning the market and the technology to be employed (Khurana & Rosenthal, 1998; Oliveira, Bagno, Mendes, Rozenfeld, & Nascimento, 2019; Salerno, Gomes, Silva, Bagno, & Freitas, 2015; Verworn, Herstatt, & Nagahira, 2008). As a result, poor and loosely defined R&D portfolios are commonly used as rudimentary starting points for I-U collaboration, and this constitutes an important gap. Moreover, these are both the most strategic initiatives for companies and the most interesting to universities.
This problem is summarized in our research objective: to devise an appropriate methodology for setting a shared R&D agenda between a company and an academic institution. To do so, an 18-month action-research program was held between a large multinational automotive manufacturer and the engineering school of a top-ranked Brazilian university. This paper discusses the program's main results and proposes the three-stage R&D shared portfolio (RSP) methodology to deal with the challenge posed by the research question.
As stated, the literature on I-U collaboration tends to over-emphasize the role of TTOs in promoting partnerships. Moreover, studies that bring R&D collaborative projects to the forefront are scarce, and most of them are focused on debating implications for public policy. So, the main intended contribution of the present research is to offer a robust approach to build a shared R&D project portfolio from a managerial viewpoint, filling an academic gap and offering guidance for managers on both sides of the partnership. As additional contributions, techniques developed and used for data collection, analysis and visualization to support decision-making in each stage of the proposed methodology are presented, and possibilities of customizing the process are suggested, when appropriate.
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Theoretical background
2.1 Fuzzy front-end: triggering technological innovation in established companies Risks and uncertainties are remarkable characteristics of any technological innovation (Rice, O Connor, & Pierantozzi, 2008). In this context, R&D may play the role of an interface function between technology management--focused on the acquisition of knowledge--and the management of innovation per se--focused on driving innovation to the market (Bagno, Salerno, & Silva, 2017; Roberts, 1988). On their turn, typical roadmapping approaches (Freitas et al., 2019; Freitas, Oliveira, Bagno, Melo Filho & Cheng, 2020; Phaal, Farrukh & Probert, 2004, 2010) consider technology domains as resources for innovation, fed by R&D projects and that enables the development of new products targeting desired markets. So, technology development and product development play their roles at different levels, pointing to the need of effectively integrating them (Roberts, 1988). Several problems in companies' innovation processes (e.g. interruptions, uncertainty concentration, resource unbalancing) are associated with difficulties in managing such kind of integration (Salerno et al., 2015).
Khurana and Rosenthal (1998) recognize important technological challenges to be faced before triggering a new product development. This preliminary phase is well known as the FFE of the innovation process. The FFE includes all the actions undertaken in the innovation process before a new project is formally approved for development, including product strategy formulation and communication, opportunity identification and assessment, product specification and project planning.
Front-end fuzziness is defined as uncertain information about the customer, technology and competition. It is related to unclear team vision and may cause a series of jobs performed without the desired effectiveness (Zhang & Doll, 2001). Moreover, the early reduction of market and technology uncertainty provided by efforts made in FFE has a positive impact on new product development project success (Verworn et al., 2008). At this point, it is important toaddthatinthepastdecades, theinnovationdebatehas growninscope(goingmuchbeyond product development) and complexity (e.g. new tools, methods and approaches to bring innovation to the organizational environment in an openness context). So, new proposals to support university-industry (U-I) partnerships aiming at technological innovations could contribute to improving the FFE performance in established companies (Oliveira et al., 2019). Lastly, the management of the FFE is a difficult challenge: high levels of risk and uncertainty claim for more structure to FFE in established companies, so such organizations need to develop proper FFE processes and practices (Bagno, Mudrik, Freitas, Cheng, & Melo, 2020; Khurana & Rosenthal, 1998; Oliveira et al., 2019).
2.2 University-industry research and development shared project portfolios: a lever for open innovation
Open innovation has become a very important topic in innovation management and can be implemented in many different ways (Chesbrough, 2019; Huizingh, 2011). The term "open innovation" refers to the various initiatives intended to seek external sources of knowledge, technology and/or innovation to drive organizational growth (Chesbrough, 2003, 2019). Engaging in an innovation strategy demands the establishment of relationships with a variety of partners, in particular, universities and research institutions, suppliers, = and even users (Melo, Salerno, Freitas, Bagno, & Brasil, 2020; Veugelers & Cassiman, 2005). In such a context, universities are considered to be central within the science and technology ecosystem, as a strong source of knowledge and technology capabilities (Berbegal-Mirabent et al., 2015). Therefore, in established companies, tying partnerships with universities may be one of the most important assignments of a team engaged in building an organizational capability for systematic innovation (Bagno, Salerno, & Dias, 2017; Melo et al., 2020).
Common interests of companies and universities, as well as their complementary vocations, are reasons for working together in R&D projects (Veugelers & Cassiman, 2005). Regarding resources, a...
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