Transforming academic knowledge into industrial innovation: the double-edged sword of learning from universities

Despite the acknowledged importance of learning from universities, the literature offers inconclusive evidence of its value for innovation. Addressing this inconsistency, we aim to explore how learning from universities affects firm innovation from the knowledge transformation perspective. We find that learning from universities plays different roles in the identification of need–solution pairs and the transformation of need–solution pairs into new products. Specifically, we find that learning from universities has an inverted U shaped effect on innovation: it exerts a positive effect on need–solution pair identification and a negative effect on the transformation of identified need–solution pairs into innovation performance. The negative role of learning from universities is weaker when the levels of R&D intensity, product modularization, and demand heterogeneity are higher. Empirical evidence based on data collected via an on-site survey of 360 Chinese high-tech firms supports our hypotheses. We confirm the robustness of our results using a separate set of survey data. This research contributes to the literature on learning from universities and technology transfer by offering insights into the role of academic knowledge in firm innovation. We further contribute to the knowledge transformation literature by exploring boundary conditions on the transformation of academic knowledge into firm innovation.