Abstract

The growing importance of the cooperation between enterprises and universities stems from the continuous search for new development sources and the need to ensure sustainable competitive advantages. However, research on the role of universities for service enterprises is still relatively rare. This article aims to identify the scope and character of cooperation between enterprises and universities, as well as the attitudes of entrepreneurs towards such cooperation. Based on empirical research carried out on the sample of 383 enterprises from the tourism industry, it was found that relatively high involvement (declared by 54.6% of entities) in relations with universities results mainly from the fact that they are based on less complex forms of transfer such as student internships or participation in conferences. It was also identified that the size and operating time significantly differentiate the use of academic knowledge in enterprises. The results show that service companies have a positive perception of cooperation with universities and definitely more often recognise the advantages of such collaboration. The most important of them is the increase in the employees' competences and image improvement due to universities' contacts. Intensifying the benefits of cooperation requires an increase in the importance of more advanced knowledge transfer mechanisms such as commissioned research or spin-off companies.

Keywords: university-industry cooperation, service companies, tourism, knowledge transfer, knowledge transfer channels

References

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