The Impact of Innovation Objectives on Industry-Academia Collaboration. A Look Towards Sustainability

The literature on innovation has been very prolific in highlighting the importance of companies developing new products, processes or business models in order to be more competitive in the marketplace. Empirical studies have shown that this innovative activity has translated into superior results for companies that have engaged in innovation. However, most of these initiatives have been studied mainly from the company's point of view without considering the contribution that academia can make to these innovation processes. This paper explores precisely how it is possible to achieve better results in innovation objectives through industry-academia collaboration (IAC). To this end, a sample of 7638 Spanish companies is analysed, distinguishing between those that have linked their innovation objectives to collaboration between the company and higher education centres. The results reveal that this IAC helps reinforce innovation objectives, demonstrating that the union of the academic and business worlds improves the results of business innovation processes. This has important theoretical implications as it offers new insights into the analysis of innovation processes and business implications as it proves that there is a need to develop platforms that encourage IAC.