Design and Analysis of Knowledge Transfer in the Process of University-Industry Collaborative Innovation Based on Social Network Theory

Abstract

Any collaborative innovation activities can not be separated from the support of social networks. Many factors in the social network affect the knowledge transfer activities. Moreover, the effectiveness of knowledge transfer determines the performance of collaborative innovation. From the point of view of relevance between collaborative innovation behavior and social network, this paper analyzes the influence of some factors in social network on knowledge transfer of school enterprise synergy innovation. The purpose of this paper is to find out the laws of knowledge transfer in the process of University-Industry (U-I) collaborative innovation, and to verify the role of these laws through system dynamics simulation. Firstly, this paper summarizes the previous views on collaborative innovation and U-I knowledge transfer. Based on the analysis of literature, it puts forward the process model of knowledge transfer in U-I Collaborative Innovation and analyzes the factors that affect this process. Secondly, the paper uses a system dynamics method to analyze the causality of knowledge transfer in the process of U-I collaborative innovation, establishes the model of system flow diagrams, and uses Vensim PLE to test the validation and sensitivity of the model. Furthermore, the experimental results demonstrate that the model could fit well the actual knowledge transfer activities in the process of U-I collaborative innovation. And, the results show that some factors in social networks (trust, knowledge transfer capability, knowledge absorptive capacity, and contract mechanisms) affect U-I knowledge transfer in different degrees. Finally, some suggestions concerning the promotion of knowledge transfer are presented according to the simulation.