The Triple Helix of innovation as a double game involving domestic and foreign actors

Purpose The collaboration relationships between innovation actors at a geographic level may be considered as grouping two separate layers, the domestic and the foreign. At the level of each layer, the relationships and the actors involved constitute a Triple Helix game. The paper distinguished three levels of analysis: the global grouping together all actors, the domestic grouping together domestic actors, and the foreign related to only actors from partner countries. Design/methodology/approach Bibliographic records data from the Web of Science for South Korea and West Africa breakdown per innovation actors and distinguishing domestic and international collaboration are analyzed with game theory. The core, the Shapley value, and the nucleolus are computed at the three levels to measure the synergy between actors. Findings The synergy operates more in South Korea than in West Africa; the government is more present in West Africa than in South Korea; domestic actors create more synergy in South Korea, but foreign more in West Africa; South Korea can consume all the foreign synergy, which is not the case of West Africa. Research limitations Research data are limited to publication records; techniques and methods used may be extended to other research outputs. Practical implications West African governments should increase their investment in science, technology, and innovation to benefit more from the synergy their innovation actors contributed at the foreign level. However, the results of the current study may not be sufficient to prove that greater investment will yield benefits from foreign synergies. Originality/value This paper uses game theory to assess innovation systems by computing the contribution of foreign actors to knowledge production at an area level. It proposes an indicator to this end.