Crossing (or not?) the 'valley of death': University-industry collaborative e-platforms

Abstract

In the today’s era of the two-sided markets, the online knowledge market places (as yet2.com) are developing rapidly. Given the importance of the academia-business interface, for the economic development these online tools now emerge to assist knowledge transfer also between academia and business. However, despite their potential, the online marketplaces or platforms for university-industry innovation remain unexplored from a research perspective – although at least three streams of literature try to tackle this phenomenon to a certain extent: economics, sociology and computer science. Using nine case studies of such platforms from across the globe, we explore in-depth their role in crossing the ‘valley of death’ between academia and business. Analysing the academia-business online knowledge transfer intermediaries through the lenses of economics, sociology and computer science, we outline the theoretical scope of this emerging phenomenon, its key characteristics and share managerial as well as policy implications on its contribution to ‘crossing the death valley’.