Intrinsic and strategic complementarity of research and knowledge transfer activities as determinants of knowledge transfer management: evidence from public research organisations

While public research organisations (PROs) are increasingly expected to actively transfer knowledge to business, government and wider society, limited research exists about how they manage this important function. Particularly, we do not know under what conditions it is more effective for PRO to vertically integrate knowledge transfer management, or to outsource it to specialist providers. Extending the theory of firm boundaries to PROs, we argue that this choice is influenced by two types of complementarity between research and knowledge transfer: intrinsic complementarity (occurring when the knowledge transfer process requires unique tacit knowledge) and strategic complementarity (occurring when the nature of the knowledge recipients matters to the PRO). By exploiting a unique 6 years panel dataset of 33 PROs in the United Kingdom, we confirm that higher degrees of both types of complementarity are associated with greater likelihood to vertically integrate knowledge transfer management, and that these effects are independent of economies of scale and sector specificities.