Keywords
- Academic Firm
- Nonlinear Innovation
- Creative Knowledge Environments
- Carayannis
- Quadruple Helix Innovation Systems
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
Synonyms
Academic firm; Commercial firm; Cross-employment; Ecosystem; Entrepreneurial university; Epistemic governance; Knowledge application; Knowledge production; Linear innovation; Mode 1; Mode 2; Mode 3; Mode 3 university; Modularity; Networks; Network absorptive capacity; Nonlinear innovation; Quadruple Helix; Quadruple Helix innovation systems; Quality of democracy; Research (R&D); Quintuple Helix innovation systems
The Conceptual Definition of the Academic Firm
The “academic firm” represents a type of firm (firm-based organization) that focuses on encouraging, supporting, and advancing knowledge production (research, research and experimental development, R&D) and knowledge application (innovation). The academic firm is also inclined to generate profit (revenues), but follows here more the logic of a “sustainability” in balance with knowledge production and the principles of knowledge production. The contrary concept to the academic firm would be the “commercial firm,” which is primarily being motivated and driven out of an interest of maximizing profit (revenues). Between these two conceptual poles of understanding, there are various possibilities of a gradual or also unconventional (radical) combination of principles for the empirical organization of a concrete firm, its organizational manifestation. The shortcut for a definition therefore is as follows: “The Commercial Firm concentrates on maximizing or optimizing profit, whereas the Academic Firm focuses on maximizing or optimizing knowledge and innovation” (Carayannis and Campbell 2012, p. 27).
Knowledge and innovation are crucial key drivers for the academic firm. Academic firms can follow the logic of linear innovation but also the logic of nonlinear innovation. The model of linear innovation often is being assigned to Vannevar Bush (1945). This model assumes a sequential “first-then” relationship, where there is first basic research at universities that gradually diffuses out into society and economy and where firms then translate the lines of basic research into application and economic as well as commercial uses and profits. But nonlinear innovation favors a different approach. Nonlinear innovation is interested in a more direct and parallel coupling of knowledge production and knowledge application, where there are mutual interferences and parallel as well as parallelized interactions between basic research and knowledge application. The organization of nonlinear innovation encourages creative organizational designs (Campbell and Carayannis 2012). In context of firm-based organizations, also for the academic firm, the processing and advancement of nonlinear innovation may imply the following: (1) firms (academic firms) engage simultaneously in different technology life cycles at different levels of technology maturity and (2) firms (academic firms) accept to a certain extent, even encourage, cross-employment of their employees with other institutions, for example, academic institutions, such as universities or other higher education institutions (see also Campbell and Carayannis 2016a, b). Cross-employment, as a concept, identifies forms and varieties of multi-employment, where an individual person is being simultaneously employed by more than one organization (by at least two organizations): should those organizations also root in different sectors, then cross-employment displays characteristics of a trans-sectoral network-building (Campbell 2011).
Academic firms express a particular interest to network with universities, other higher education institutions, university-related institutions, and all forms and manifestations of organizations that conduct an academically based type of research or basic research. Academic firms explore also possibilities, options, and opportunities of networking with other firms (academic firms, but also commercial firms). There always remains the challenge, how to balance and how to refer to each other (out of the perspective of the firms) with regard to cooperation and competition. Furthermore, networks can integrate aspects of cooperation and competition. The organizational design of patterns of cooperation and competition allows creativity and can also be captured and described by the notion and concept of “co-opetition” (Brandenburger and Nalebuff 1997) (see Fig. 1).
Knowledge production in context of universities and the higher education system has been explained on the basis of the models of “Mode 1” and “Mode 2” of knowledge production. Mode 1 emphasizes a traditional understanding and refers to university basic research, with no particular interest in knowledge application, and being organized in context of academic disciplines. Here, the established peers of the academic disciplines define and decide on quality (acceptance and rejection of work). Mode 2 already expresses a greater interest in knowledge application and is characterized by the following principles: “knowledge produced in the context of application,” “transdisciplinarity,” “heterogeneity and organizational diversity,” “social accountability and reflexivity,” and finally “quality control” (Gibbons et al. 1994, pp. 3–8, 167; see furthermore Nowotny et al. 2001, 2003, 2006). “Mode 3” universities or higher education institutions are inclined to seek and to explore creative, novel, and innovative combinations of Mode 1 and Mode 2. One key interest of Mode 3 is “basic research in the context of application” (Campbell and Carayannis 2013, p. 34). Mode 2 as well as Mode 3 universities clearly meet and fulfill some of the characteristics of the “entrepreneurial university.” However, it is important to realize that a Mode 3 university is more than an entrepreneurial university, in the sense that Mode 3 universities are still interested in focusing on and in conducting basic research. But Mode 3 university does not assume an intrinsic contradiction between basic research and innovation (knowledge application): in fact, quite contrarily Mode 3 university sees benefits and opportunities in a parallel (nonlinear) approach to knowledge production and knowledge application and to forms of combinations between basic research and innovation. Mode 3 universities (higher education institutions) have the opportunity of offering and developing “Creative Knowledge Environments” (on creative knowledge environments; see Hemlin et al. 2004).
Mode 2 and Mode 3 higher education institutions are the perfect organizational vis-à-vis of academic firms to engage in trans-sectoral networks and to perform good knowledge production. Here, a creative and innovative hybrid overlapping in regular frequency occurs or should possibly occur. This represents a coming together and networking on equal and fair grounds. The universities (higher education institutions) should not adapt one sidedly to firms and their economic needs, but both sides should learn mutually from each other to the benefit of all involved parties, actors, and institutions. The assertion is that “While the entrepreneurial (Mode 2) university represents a partial extension of business elements to the world of academia, the academic firm could serve as an example for an extension of the world of academia to the world of business. Academic firms are knowledge-oriented, interested in engaging in networks with universities (the higher education sector), encourage ‘academic culture and values’ to motivate their employees, allow forms of academic work (such as academic-style publishing), and support continuing education and life-long learning of and for their employees (flexible time schemes, honoring life-long learning and continued continuing education with internal career promotion)” (Carayannis and Campbell 2012, p. 27).
In organizational terms, there are several possibilities, options, and opportunities on how the academic firm can be realized and can be structured (Carayannis and Campbell 2012, p. 27):
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“A whole firm”
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“A subunit, subdivision, or branch of a ‘commercial’ firm”
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“Certain characteristics or elements of a whole (commercial) firm”
A whole firm can be organized and designed in accordance with principles of an academic firm. However, it is also possible only to organize subunits (branches) of a firm according to principles of academic firms. Alternatively, the focus may be placed primarily on certain principles of an academic firm, and these principles then can be applied to or across the whole (commercial) firm or at least to substantial divisions of the whole (commercial) firm. The term “academic firm” perhaps invites us to the belief, imagination, or vision that this would always mean a whole firm. What the analysis presented here however demonstrates that this would be an artificially narrowing down of the concept and idea of the academic firm. It is important to note that the academic firm can address a whole firm, or only specific organizational units (subunits), processes, or principles of a whole firm. In fact, this even would allow for hybrid combinations and overlapping arrangements between the academic firm (knowledge focused and knowledge driven) and the commercial firm (profit driven). Currently it is difficult to assess how common or uncommon academic firms or principles of the academic firm are in the world of contemporary business. The conventional wisdom would be that the commercial firm represents (still represents) the dominant type of organizational representation for how to structure and how to develop firms (companies). In metaphorical terms, this is also the visualized image and picture in Fig. 1. With the advancement of economy and knowledge economy in context of the knowledge society (and knowledge democracy), it is plausible to assume that expectations are justified that a diffusion and spreading of academic firms appear to be reasonable. Academic firms have all the potential of substantially transforming (in a bottom-up mode and fashion) how the economy and economic activity are being understood and processed. The academic firm invites the introduction of academic values, lifestyles, and working methods into business, because the academic firm believes that academic research and the academic context to academic research are beneficial to the capacities and capabilities of firms focusing on knowledge production (research) and knowledge application (innovation). For the academic firm, academic research is not external but is being conceptualized, remodeled, and incorporated as an intrinsic process and an intrinsic form of organization within the boundaries of a firm. Academic firms also engage in academic research, where research is linked and interconnected with innovation. Academic firms express and encourage a “limited ‘scientification’ of business R&D” (Campbell and Güttel 2005, p. 170; see also Carayannis and Campbell 2009).
Organizational Aspects of the Academic Firm
In organizational terms, the following aspects appear to be important for academic firms:
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Strategic Governance: Academic firms are characterized by employees with a high level of background knowledge. Academic education and experience allow them (in principle) to make decisions based on their own judgment. They are able to understand the firm’s strategy and to connect information from outside meaningfully to the firm’s existing knowledge base. However, the firm’s strategy decides on whether organizations can allow employees to make decisions on their own or to restrict their behavioral freedom by imposing structures. Also within an organization, decision-making rights are distributed differently as some domains require precision and efficiency, sometimes even the R&D department, while others profit from creativity and improvisation. Thus, academic firms either build upon at least implicitly a control-based or on a commitment-based HRM (human resource management) system to strategically govern their employee behavior. Depending on the strategy, even academic firms have to make a decision on their HRM system, that is, how to govern experienced employees. Firms that need to combine exploration and exploitation on a high level in order to achieve ambidexterity have to develop structures for either separation of control- and commitment-based HRM systems in the form of an internal differentiation (structural ambidexterity) or integration based on a commitment-based HRM system (contextual ambidexterity).
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Modularity: Specialization in academic firms often requires the development of highly sophisticated competencies on individual and on group level. Therefore, modularity provides an organizational structure to allow specialization and integration concurrently. The development of linkages and the creation of a basic understanding between specialized employees and groups are necessary in order to jointly perform either within an organization or within a network of multiple organizations.
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Network Absorptive Capacity: The development of an integrative frame of reference between different specialized knowledge providers is a key requirement within networks. Network partners need sufficient absorptive capacity within the network to understand and to interlink the contributions of other network partners. Joint development groups, strategic meetings to align network partners, temporary employee transfer, or joint project meetings serve to establish network-internal absorptive capacity. If network-internal absorptive capacity is high, the entire network is able to profit from specialized network partners who are able to absorb knowledge in their particular environment. Network-internal absorptive capacity serves as a means to circulate information from various network partners internally.
Conclusion and Future Directions
In search for an ideal-typical portraying of the academic firm and the concept of the academic firm, the following characteristics and principles can be listed and again summarized:
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The academic firm is a type of firm (firm-based organization or institution) that is being driven by focusing on encouraging, supporting, and advancing knowledge production (research, research and experimental development, R&D) and knowledge application (innovation). The academic firm is also interested in generating profits (revenues), but this should be a “sustainable profit” in comprehensive terms and well in balance with the good principles of a good knowledge production and knowledge application (innovation). The academic firm operates in a whole knowledge-based ecosystem.
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The academic firm is and behaves as knowledge based, knowledge oriented, knowledge driven, knowledge producing, and knowledge creating. The academic firm displays (often) an inclination for applying and following the logic of nonlinear innovation, by this demonstrating flexibility. The academic firm regards basic research in the context of application as an opportunity.
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The academic firm incorporates academic values to motivate its employees and to create bonds of trust and of a good relationship between the organization and the individual employees. The academic firm qualifies a disciplinary variety of the background of its employees (and their competences) as a potential opportunity and asset to perform creatively in knowledge production and knowledge application.
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The academic firm has an interest to engage in networks with universities (higher education institutions) or other academic research institutions, driven out of a desire to access university knowledge (e.g., basic university research). In general, the academic firm values engagement in diversified networks as a form for creating knowledge as well as benefitting from opportunities.
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The academic firm allows and encourages academic research work (academic publications can act as incentives for employees to codify their tacit knowledge).
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The academic firm supports continuing education, further education, and lifelong learning of its employees and has in principle a positive attitude in favor of a flexibility concerning the load of working hours and their flexible adaptation for their employees and their needs (full-time, part-time, perhaps shifting back-and-forth), but also for partial absence or partial leave of its employees. Cross-benefitting cross-connections between careers and career schemes with continuing education are being explored by the academic firm.
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The academic firm accepts in principle, in certain situations even promotes, split employment or “cross-employment” (multi-employment) of its employees with other (academic) organizations or institutions, for example, universities or other higher education institutions.
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The academic firm is interested in creating internally “Creative Knowledge Environments” (Hemlin et al. 2004) within the internal boundaries of its organization.
The academic firm has the potential of transforming and changing the way how knowledge-based and knowledge-oriented economic work is being organized and performed.
However, does the academic firm represent primarily an ideal-typical concept, or does the academic firm exist (do academic firms exist) also in real terms? The commercial firm appears to define the dominant and established norm in the world of contemporary business. The empirical appropriateness or the proof of fitness for the ideas of the academic firm perhaps still needs to be demonstrated or verified. Academic firms are or would be exposed to an economic environment, where success often means to cope with and to profit from mechanisms and forces of severe competition in a continuously globalizing world. But the concept of “co-opetition” (Brandenburger and Nalebuff 1997) suggests also that success in competition means to develop networks with overlapping patterns of cooperation and competition. Between the two (conceptually) extreme poles of the academic firm and the commercial firm, many and several in-between forms of organization or hybrid combinations are possible. The academic firm represents a challenging proposition for current business; the academic firm, however, indicates also routes and paths, for how next-stage changes and future changes and future successes in the world of business and the knowledge economy (in the knowledge economy) can be approached and achieved. The academic firm is interested in bringing together innovation and entrepreneurship for development, more so for sustainable development. The academic firm can also be regarded to support knowledge democracy (Campbell et al. 2015; Carayannis and Campbell 2014).
Cross-References
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Applied Design Thinking Lab and Creative Empowering of Interdisciplinary Teams
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Cross-Retirement (Cross-Employed Cross-Retired) and Innovation
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Linguistic Dimension of Creativity, Invention, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship
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Quintuple Innovation Helix and Global Warming: Challenges and Opportunities for Policy and Practice
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Campbell, D.F.J., Carayannis, E.G., Güttel, W.H. (2017). Academic Firm. In: Encyclopedia of Creativity, Invention, Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6616-1_252-2
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