Social capital to facilitate ‘engineered’ university–industry collaboration for technology transfer: A dynamic perspective

Over the last decade, social capital concept has received considerable amount of research being regarded as an

important value creation mechanism. However, we still have limited understanding about the nature of interaction

between the dimensions of this capital, and how it can be useful in mitigating the impediments evolving

during government-sponsored (i.e., engineered) university–industry collaboration (UIC). In this paper, we address

the previous gap by analyzing the dynamics of social capital dimensions during the preformation and

postformation stages of UIC. The paper relies on a unique context that comprises five embedded case studies

of UIC for technology transfer: the Faraday Partnership Initiative, a UK government-backed novel scheme for enhancing

innovation. The analysis shows that the impact and interaction of the dimensions were not static but

rather varying over time. Further, we present a new value creation framework for social capital through mapping

its power in reducing the intensity of difficulties emerged during the collaboration lifetime. We also identify two

facilitating factors as critical in creating and maintaining social capital in engineered UIC. The present study thus

contributes to a deeper understanding of the value of inter-organizational social capital.