Knowledge exchange under asymmetric information in emerging economies: impact of signals from Indian universities

Abstract

Abstract Emerging and developing countries are characterized by severe information asymmetries in knowledge markets, which when combined with other institutional weaknesses, lead to very low levels of interactions between universities and industry. Using data from a sample of Indian universities, we identify university-specific publicly available organizational characteristics which, acting as “signals,” may reduce the information asymmetry problem and catalyze knowledge exchange (KE) partnerships. We find that strength of passive signals such as university ownership structure and reputation, and active ones such as volume of patents filed, impacts a university’s KE performance positively. The impact of each signal is very KE channel specific, and the magnitude of this impact is large. We also find that signal strength negatively moderates the direct linkage between research and KE, implying that signaling is more relevant for universities where there is greater separation of its research outputs and KE performance.