The governance of university-industry knowledge transfer

Purpose: The aim of this article is to contribute to the debate on university-industry knowledge transfer and on the changing organization of knowledge creation activities. Design/methodology/approach: By integrating several strands of analysis, a conceptual framework is developed that associates several properties of knowledge and of the institutional context in which university-industry relationships take place, to the knowledge transfer governance forms that are most likely to be adopted. The framework is shown to be in accordance with results from the empirical literature, and is validated using an original dataset. Findings: The data analysis confirms that the choice of university-industry knowledge transfer governance forms on the part of organizations involved in knowledge production and dissemination projects is related to the key dimensions in the conceptual framework. Originality/value: The conceptual framework developed in this article allows the incentives that drive the choice of specific governance forms for university-industry interactions to be explained, as well as the processes and rationales that underpin the changing nature of university-industry relationships to be explained. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.