Collaborations between universities and entrepreneurial ventures: a micro-firm perspective

Purpose As the Open Innovation (OI) literature suggests that smaller firms may derive greater advantages from collaborations, micro-firms stand to benefit significantly from engaging in this process. Furthermore, as micro-firms exhibit a preference for separating cooperation from competition, universities may make a suitable partner for OI. Despite these assertions, the extant literature is under-developed with respect to micro-firms’ university collaborations. Given this, the purpose of this paper is to examine university collaboration among micro-firms to establish: (1) the degree to which they develop collaborative links with universities and (2) identify the characteristics of micro-firms which influence their propensity to engage in these collaborations. Design/methodology/approach Using data from the Longitudinal Small Business Survey, we utilise a logistic regression model that uses a sample of 1001 UK micro-firms (those with <10 employees) to test a set of hypotheses examining the influence of the firms’ networking, performance, capabilities, and location on university collaboration. Findings The propensity of micro-firms to collaborate with universities is based on three key factors. Firstly, university collaboration is typically part of a range of collaborative links for micro-firms. Secondly, the need for knowledge to underpin competitiveness in export markets also drives micro-firm’s university collaborations. Finally, micro-firms’ university collaboration is related to the knowledge intensity of their location, with those in less knowledge intensive regions more likely to collaborate with universities. Originality/value The study responds to calls for a greater focus on the open innovation activities of micro-firms through presenting a systematic examination of the propensity of these firms to engage in university collaboration. The paper therefore contributes new insights into micro-firms, namely that university collaboration is part of a broader engagement strategy with a range of external partners. Furthermore, as university collaboration is more likely among those that are engaged with actors that are organisationally similar to universities, we posit that organisational proximity is an important consideration in the formation of these collaborative links. Thirdly, we identify a “market push effect”, where engaging in exporting increases the propensity to collaborate with universities, and “location push effect”, whereby those micro-firms located in less knowledge intensive regions are driven towards university collaboration as there are fewer alternative partners with which to pursue OI.