Organizing knowledge transfer between university and agribusiness firms

Abstract

The agribusiness sector represents an economic sector of particular importance and with the highest employment rate. The sector is very complex due to the characteristics of the organizations that are part of it and need to base their competitive advantage on innovations often obtained by sharing knowledge with third organizations. The study highlights the main theories of the key organizational factors that influence the knowledge transfer process between universities and firms and presents the first results of an exploratory analysis, aimed to understand what are the key organizational factors identified by the entrepreneurs of the agribusiness sector that affect knowledge transfer for innovation, in particular from universities and high educational institutions. The study can help agribusiness organizations to activate and manage their interorganizational relationships in order to improve their mechanism of knowledge sharing for innovation and shed light for scholars on an important business sector.