The Way Chinese Companies Collaborate with Chinese Universities

Abstract: The objective of this study is to investigate how Chinese companies collaborate with Chinese universities. These companies in academic often referred as technology-based firms and follow a trend of Industry-University collaboration. Prior research within this field has found that these technology-based firms generally apply a model when collaborate with universities to reach both exploration and exploitation. Literature has given much attention to firms originating from European countries, and for that matter, more research needs to focus on the collaboration between Chinese firms and Chinese Universities. This exploratory research has incorporated a holistic approach in order to obtain an overall picture of the underlying pattern behind the collaboration. In order to aid and facilitate this investigation, I have followed a conceptual research model that has functioned as a guiding tool for my exploration and analysis. This conceptual research model is comprised of four main Industry-University models: Spin-off Model, joint project development model, joint-lab model and PHD work station. In order to investigate the objectives of the study, four cases from companies and universities were selected representing highly innovative company and university: Westbaltic Components AB, HuaWei Technologies, FuDan University and ZheJiang University.