Preconditions for Successful Knowledge Creation in the Context of Academic Innovation Projects

Abstract

This paper assumes that the key to understanding successes and failures in knowledge creation (KC) by academic innovation teams in a scenario of university–industry relations is to identify and evaluate preconditions, needed for efforts to flourish. We examine the synergistic intervention of individual competence, information literacy, innovation culture and communication in academic project team work while KC occurs, resulting in technological innovation. Our in-depth research with 20 university project teams has led us to a more differentiated picture of KC in academic innovation projects. The qualitative technique of categorical content analysis was used. As the main contributions, we present in a four-dimensional perspective the resulting relationships between the knowledge created by the teams and the critical factors that influence its creation. Moreover, deriving from these relations, six patterns of behaviour were found in the study.