| dc.description.abstract | Moving from a triple helix perspective, through quadruple and quintuple toward
N-Tuple helices, the emphasis placed on the utility of knowledge and the
effectiveness of knowledge transfer by the world’s leading economies only
increases. Similarly, at an organisational level the shift toward knowledge sharing
and open innovation reflects this also. Therefore, the importance of
understanding the interactions between the respective stakeholders and the
specific mechanism and structures being developed to facilitate and manage this
activity, is imperative too. This will better enable us to maximise the potential
offered to companies, universities and societies from knowledge sharing and
exchange and this study focuses on one particular type of organisation operating
within this intersection – intermediaries who facilitate knowledge or technology
transfer. Firstly we identify a range of structural models that stakeholders from
around the world have adopted to build their knowledge and technology transfer
offerings. These range across institutional: through faculty-based; arms-length;
peripheral; regional-virtual and virtual-online. The article discusses the relative
merits of each structure before focussing in on one new and emergent mode –
the virtual online platform. We then explore different on-line platforms before
deriving a simple typology that begins to characterise their respective service
offerings and major differentiating characteristics. Finally, the article showcases
five specific offering, representing the respective typologies, before discussing
their relative strengths and weaknesses and their fit with the wider structural
offerings, presented in the earlier sections of the paper. The article makes a
number of contributions. By identifying the respective structural configurations of
intermediaries, researchers may compare and contrast each format and
University senior managers can likewise consider the respective options before
they select and launch their own knowledge or technology transfer office. Also
by exploring and comparing the virtual online platforms, actors in the triple helix
can understand how this new type of intermediation fits within the existing
typologies. | en_GB |
