Analysis of Factors in Business-University Cooperation

This report investigates the factors influencing Vietnamese businesses' willingness to engage in business-university cooperation. The study develops a model identifying factors that affect businesses' willingness to participate in such collaborations. Using a regression model with SPSS, the research highlights two key factors: awareness of benefits and barriers. The findings reveal that awareness of benefits positively influences businesses' willingness to cooperate, while barriers hinder their engagement. The report provides a comprehensive literature review, discusses the methodology, and presents the results, leading to the proposal of solutions to improve businesses' willingness to cooperate. The study emphasizes the importance of this cooperation for innovation and economic development, particularly in the context of Vietnam's evolving business landscape. The report offers valuable insights into how Vietnamese businesses can leverage science and technology resources through partnerships with educational institutions. The research also touches upon the broader context of business-university cooperation in different countries like Israel and Australia.

A study on the factors affecting the willingness to engage in business-
university cooperation
Abstract
While developed countries have been aware of the important role and built successful models of
Business-University corporations, in Vietnam, this corporation has not been paid enough
attention to and not yet implemented. For the purpose of improving the situation, this study
developed a model of factors that affect the businesses’ willingness to participate in Business-
University corporations of Vietnamese companies. Two factors (Awareness of benefits and
Barriers) that affect the willingness to participate in Business-University corporations have been
found out by Regression Model with SPSS. While Awareness of benefits promotes the
businesses’ willingness, Barriers prevents owners/managers from engaging in such relationships.
Based on the research results, some solutions can be offered in order to enhance the willingness
of companies.
Keywords: Business-University corporations, regression model.
1. Introduction
In the world, there is much work to have been done about business-university cooperation so far.
However, those researches are mainly about identifying the different modes of cooperation or
identifying factors that affect the cooperation, albeit the second issue is less often mentioned
(Etzkowitz & Leydesdorff, 1995, 1996, 2000; Peters & Fusfeld, 1982; Howells, 1986). Only few
researchers began to use quantitative methods to reveal the relation between above factors and
strength or performance of such cooperation in both companies and universities perspectives
(Pavlin, 2015). In Vietnam, some authors such as Le Cong Co (2018), Nguyen Quynh Mai
(2014), Nguyen Thi Huyen Tran et al. stated the importance of the cooperation relating factors.
Nguyen Thi Thu Hang (2010) conducted an analysis for the cooperation of Ho Chi Minh City
context. Despite all of them, there is a shortage of academic work, especially in willingness to
engage in the business-university relationship as the cooperation situation in Vietnam is
immature. Moreover, there is a need for studying the business party in such cooperation, because
they are usually less active and more reluctant than their university partner but their decisions to
cooperate are essential for the relationship.
Vietnam is entering the 4.0 revolution, which is not only an opportunity but also a challenge for
businesses. To succeed in today's fiercely competitive environment, businesses must adapt quick.
The demand for innovation of businesses renders the motivation for developing scientific and
technological research and development activities at enterprises boost. One of the newest and
most affordable ways to help businesses is to partner with higher education institutions. One of
the newest and most affordable ways to help businesses is to partner with higher education
institutions. In addition to obtaining scientific and technological achievements, the partnership
also helps businesses with numerous other benefits such as human resources, reputation, etc.
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This is especially essential to meet the requirements of economic development and succeed in
implementing industrialization - modernization of our country today.
In recent years, many countries around the world have been aware of how beneficial to develop a
university-business cooperation model is, thereby we can foster this form of cooperation and
gain remarkable results. According to data from the Israeli Patent Office, research and
development activities in Israel take place mainly at seven universities and dozens of research
institutes as well as hundreds of businesses across the country. Most research results published in
Israel are conducted at universities. The Israeli government has taken plenty of actions to
promote the relationship between businesses and universities, especially in commercial research
and development (R&D) programs. In Australia, the cooperation between universities and
businesses in Australia has so far been conceived of not being the necessary work but the
extremely important one, considered as "coupling of consciousness". Collaboration has brought
benefits to many parties, including students, businesses and academics. Cooperation and
cohesion between universities and businesses has become a common trend worldwide.
Therefore, the study of the factors affecting the businesses’ willingness to participate in
cooperation with education institutions may enable them to offer solutions to help businesses
take advantage of science and technology resources is an indispensable task.
The study aims to achieve three specific objectives lying in: Building an econometric
model in order to find out the factors affecting the businesses’ willingness to cooperate with
education institutions in Vietnamese enterprises; Through the result of this regression model, it is
able to find out the factors that affect the businesses’ willingness to participate in cooperation
and answer the question: How do the factors affect the level of businesses’ willingness to
participate in cooperation; Based on the survey and running the model result, propose solutions
to improve the businesses’ willingness of cooperation for Vietnamese enterprises.
2. Literature review and Hypothesis development
There are a great number of documents and researches on the cooperation between universities
and businesses in many countries around the world (Table 1). The researches mainly focuse on
two issues: (1) Identifying the different modes of cooperation and (2) identifying factors that
affect the cooperation, albeit the second issue is rarely mentioned.
Table 1. Researches on the cooperation between universities and businesses
Research Viewpoint
Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff (1995,
1996, 1997, 2000); Leydesdorff
(2012)
The Triple Helix model illustrates the relationship
between Universities – Businesses – Government. The
model is a bloc of the 3 counterparts layering one
another. They are separate yet are also responsible
for other’s roles.
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Peters and Fusfeld (1982) There are two types of cooperation, canonical and
non-canonical. They are classified by duration of
cooperation, party effort, and whether the
cooperation is multilateral or unilateral.
Vedovello (1998) Complimenting Peters & Fusfeld (1982) that groups
cooperate based on human resources.
Howells (1986) There two types of cooperation: (1) Companies’
operations are carried out by universities and (2)
universities’ operations are carried out at businesses.
Geisler and Rubenstein (1989) 4 modes of cooperation (1) Operation from
companies, (2) Operations as business contracts, (3)
Cooperative research, (4) Research park.
Martin
et al.(2000) R&D, human resources transfer, commercialization of
research.
Davey and Muros (2011) Five levels of cooperation are: Impact, Product,
Result, Factors, and Operation. There are eight modes
of cooperation. In which, 4 factor groups affect the 5
modes of cooperation.
Pavlin (2015) There are 4 factor groups which influence
cooperation modes, among which Processes and
approach and Drivers groups are more dominant than
Barriers and Organizational characteristics groups.
Sources: Compiled by author
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Regarding foreign researches on factors influencing the preparation or the decision to participate
in the cooperation between universities and companies, the author has provided the following
summary:
Davey and Muros (2011), in a report about the state of university-business cooperation in
Europe, have pointed out 3 factors affecting the cooperation. These include motivators (e.g use
research in practice and improve innovation capacity) and barriers (with funding representing the
largest barrier) to this relationship, and other facilitators which create advantages and
disadvantages such as mutual trust, shared goal, mutual commitment or prior relation.
Pavlin (2015), using the survey of 397 enterprises across Europe in 2015, concludes that the two
dominant factor groups in affecting this cooperative link are the Structure and approach group
(which include methods in supporting and developing career capacity of students, cooperation in
strategic management, cooperation in managing and innovating the curriculum) and the Driver
group (the nature and level of cooperation, objective factors). The other two factor groups are
Barrier (barriers in complex organization structure, in individual personnels, and in limitation of
resources) and Organizational Characteristics (business line, number of employees, number of
researchers, and number of students taken in as employees). His results reveal that those factor
groups could contribute to performance of key university-business cooperation modes.
In Vietnam, Nguyễn Thị Thu Hằng (2010) has compiled past academic researches and proposed
that 4 factor groups which influence cooperation include: Situational factor, organizational
factor, difference in operation characteristic, and perception of companies about the
universities/institutions. The four factor groups are analyzed with Structural Equation Modeling
and based on a sample of 269 business owners or managers in Ho Chi Minh City to find out
whether those factors affect the relationship between companies and universities/institutions. The
results show that Situational factor and Organizational factor help to promote the link between
companies and universities/institutions, while Difference in operation characteristic and
Perception of companies about the universities/institutions hamper its success. Besides, her work
states that the stronger the link is, the higher performance companies gain.
Lê Công Cơ et al (2018) has also pointed out that factor groups include: Organization,
Recognition, Benefits, Companies’ Characteristics, and companies’ Perception of the university.
Data from regression analysis dictate that all 5 of these factor groups positively affect the
cooperative relationship, among which Companies’ Characteristic group is the most influential.
Research of Nguyễn Quỳnh Mai (2014) and Nguyễn Thị Huyền Trân et al (2018) show that
benefits have great impact on the decision to participate in cooperation from companies’
perspective. On the other hand, Hoàng Thanh Huyền and Phạm Thị Minh Thảo (2018)’s work
highlights the importance of the relationship between the institution and the business.
Overall, past researches both in Vietnam and abroad have different theories with practical
evidence. However, there has not been a qualitative research done on businesses to analyze how
these factors influence companies’ willingness to cooperate. This paper will accomplish that.
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As mentioned above, there have been some researches highlighting factors which influence the
decision or the willingness to participate in different modes of cooperation between universities
and businesses.
According to the reality in Vietnam as well as past researches, the author has built a model to
include 4 factors: (1) Awareness of benefits, (2) Perception, (3) Drivers, (4) Barriers. The
dependent variable is willingness level to engage in cooperation between universities and
businesses. (Willingness to cooperate for short).
This model is mostly based on the work of Davey and Muros (2011) on elements and operation
level. Pavlin (2015), Nguyễn Thị Thu Hằng (2010), Lê Công Cơ et al (2015); are researches that
agree upon the factors which influence modes of cooperation; therefore, the author suggests
utilize those factors in this model.
Awareness of the benefits
The recognition of the benefits from the cooperation factor – or the benefit factor–is the sharing,
realizing the benefits between the ones which educate and produce high-skilled workers
(universities) and the ones which utilize high-skilled workers (businesses) (Lê Công Cơ et al,
2015). Universities and businesses usually build cooperative relationships because they
recognize the benefits brought about by cooperation (Mora-Valentin, 2000). The more
businesses value cooperation, the higher the level of cooperation, and vice versa with the
universities. The benefits are considered the purpose (drivers) of cooperation. Undoubtedly, both
counterparts have to recognize the benefits in order to cooperate, long-term or short-term.
Furthermore, the benefits need to be balanced on both sides, being advantageous to both.
However, in reality, each party’s definition of benefits is different. For example, businesses look
for workers, technology, and cost-savings (Buisseret & Cameron, 1994; Martino 1996; Scott,
1998); while universities want financial support, better facilities (Martino, 1996; Scott, 1998;
Howells et al, 1998; Martin et al, 2000). Stemming from different drivers and which drivers
being more important to businesses will affect the willingness level to engage in cooperation
((Nguyễn Quỳnh Mai, 2014; Nguyễn Thị Huyền Trân et al, 2018). Therefore, willingness to
cooperate depends on recognition of benefits. The author proposes hypothesis H1.
H1: Recognition of benefits has apositive effect on the willingness to cooperate.
Perception
The perception factor – businesses’ perception of the universities, is the knowledge/ assessment
from companies of universities such as reputation, curriculum. For example, according to Lê
Công Cơ (2015), if companies do not know much about the school’s activities due to little
advertisement, companies will not approach the school. Therefore, not only do universities need
to educate students, they also need to build their reputation. Although it is vital that they can
produce good workers, understanding the needs of a company will raise its perception of the
institution which determines whether the company promotes the cooperation. According to the
model by Hoàng Thanh Huyền and Phạm Thị Minh Thảo (2019), established relationship
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between universities and companies has the greatest impact on cooperation. In said research, the
author takes a negative stance in their survey with questions such as Businesses do not believe in
the standard, facilities, knowledge, and curriculum of the university; Businesses do not know
about the university’s operation and information. Therefore, the author proposes hypothesis H2.
H2: Perception has a negative effect on the willingness to cooperate.
Drivers
The drivers in this model are the existing factors / external factors that promote business and
university partnerships, the driver factors are the results of the situational factors in Nguyen Thi
Thu Hang’s model (2010) and Contextual elements in Trong's model (2018). These existing
factors come from the school (such as facility conditions, curriculum design), or from the
business (such as research funding capacity), or the relationship between the university and the
business itself (long-term, reputable), or government policies. Overall, the more powerful these
driver factors are, the higher the degree of cooperation. However, this study will not consider all
the driver manifestations, but only the main drivers (presented in the scale) and formulate
hypothesis H3.
H3: Drivers have a positive effect on the willingness to cooperate.
Barrier
In contrast to the driver factors, the barrier factors hinder intrinsic and effective partnership
(Trong, 2018). Therefore, to promote university-business partnership, policies need to be
implemented to break these barriers. Barriers can be intrinsic within the university (such as
inappropriate school policies, inefficient structure of the school's organizational structure), or
within businesses (such as complex procedures. , poor corporate governance); and objective
barriers (such as long distances, poor faculty qualifications, specialized departments that do not
promote cooperation). Howells et al. (1998) also suggest that the barrier/ difficulty inpartnership
can be divided into two processes.The first of which is the barrier to cooperate (understood as the
driver to decide whether or not there is a partnership). The second is difficulty in maintaining
and developing the collaboration. In addition, barriers for businesses are also different from
barriers for universities. Several other ways of dividing barriers such as Van Dierdonck
Debackere (1988) have divided barriers into three groups: cultural, institutional, operational;
Lopez-Martinez et al. (1994) divide barriers into groups: structural factors, institutional factors,
and individual factors.
This study also looks at only a few key barriers (presented in the scale section). Different link
barriers from the university side may affect the extent to which different modes of university-
enterprise partnership are implemented in practice (Trong, 2018).
H4: Barriers have a negative effect on the willingness to cooperate.
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3. Methodology
Figure 1. Model of factors affecting the willingness for cooperation (initial)
Source: Author construction
Y = b0 + b1* AWARENESS + b2*PERCEPTION + b3*MOTIVATION + b4*BARRIER +
e(1)
In which:
Y: The dependent variable is the willingness to participate in enterprise-university cooperation,
divided into 5 levels.
AWARENESS: Recognition of the benefits of an enterprise is divided into 5 levels.
PERCEPTION: Perception – the understanding/ evaluation of businesses about the university
regarding the reputation of the school, the school's curriculum– is divided into 5 levels.
MOTIVATION: Driver of enterprises –existing factors/ external factors that promote business
cooperation and universities– is divided into 5 levels.
BARRIER: Barriers, which are intrinsic and effectiveness-binding obstacles, are divided into 5
levels.
e: Random error
Through the research on factors affecting the decision or the willingness to engage in modes of
cooperation between universities and businesses, the author has developed a questionnaire
related to the mentioned factors, to conduct field surveys in Vietnam.
To collect data, the author used a 24-questionable divided into 2 groups, in which the Survey was
conducted in December 2019 to February 2020, in the form of sending printed survey or online
survey to leaders from the head of department and above in 86 businesses in the Northern. Those
businesses are picked up from an enterprise dataset by random tools to avoid bias in research.
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The
willingness to
participate in
cooperation
Awareness
of benefits
Drivers
Barriers Perception

To collect data, the author used the questionnaire chart which is improved by profound opinions
from 5 business owners/managers and one lecturer. The survey questions are divided into 2 main
groups. The first group consists of 5 questions, from question 1 to question 4 are to learn specific
information about the company such as the type, the size, the number of years of operating the
business, the current level of cooperation with universities. Question 5 exploits the firm's
assessment to relate to the willingness to link its cooperation with higher education institutions.
The second group (question 5-24) is designed to investigate the enterprise's opinion on the levels
from Not very Important to Important based on the following convention:
1. Very unimportant
2. Unimportant
3. Normal
4. Important
5. Very important.
This group considers the evaluation of the importance of factors affecting the model of scientific
and technological cooperation between higher education institutions and enterprises from the
enterprise's perspective.
4. Empirical results
The number of survey charts received was 58 out of a total of 86 sent (equivalent to 67%), in
which 58 tables are valid. Of 58 respondents, 48 enterprises have cooperated in at least one form,
of which 30 enterprises cooperate at a very low level, only 4 enterprises said they are very often
involved. cooperation activities with higher education institutions. Based on the results of
running SPSS software, the relationship of the factors affecting the willingness to participate in
each form of integration is shown as follows:
Table 2. Descriptive statistics
Variable Min Max Mean Standard
error
Coefficient
of variation
AWARENES
S 1 5 3,58 0,768 0,215
PERCEPTIO
N 1 5 3,17 0,711 0,224
DRIVERS 1 5 3,42 0,857 0,251
BARRIERS 1 5 3,08 0,838 0,273
WILLINGN
ESS 1 5 2,97 1,092 0,368
Source: According to the survey results
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Through Cronbach's Alpha test, the reliability of 13 observed variables of 4 different factors is
guaranteed (Table 2) according to three criteria: Cronbach's Alpha coefficient, total correlation
coefficient and Cronbach's Alpha coefficient if eliminating variable (Trong & Ngoc, 2008).
Table 3. Cronbach’s Alpha Test
Factor group Observable Variables Cronbach’s Alpha
Coefficient
AWARENESS 6 0,867
PERCEPTION 2 0,734
DRIVERS 2 0,780
BARRIERS 3 0,746
Source: According to the survey results
The scale is assessed to be sufficiently reliable to start the EFA factor analysis, which analyzes
the correlation between variables and the correlation between observed variables and factors,
thereby determining the necessary set of variables for research. Analyzing EFA with multiple
unsatisfactory variable types, only two perceived benefits and barriers were retained, after others
are eliminated because their factor loadings are not higher than 0,75 (given the sample size is 58)
(Hair, Black, Anderson, & Tatham, 1998). The results of factor analysis and rotation matrix are
presented below (Table 3 and Table 4).
Table 4. KMO coefficient and Bartlett test of factor analysis
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy. 0,737
Bartlett's Test of Sphericity Approx. Chi-Square 130,568
Df 15
Sig. 0,000
Source: According to the survey results
Table 5. Rotational matrix table
Variables 1 2
AWARENESS: 0,886
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AWARENESS: 0,771
AWARENESS: 0,765
AWARENESS: 0,759
BARRIER 0,861
BARRIER 0,849
Source: According to the survey results
Thus, this set of 6 observed variables will be included in correlation analysis and regression.
Accordingly, the research model is changed as Figure 3.
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Figure 2. Model of factors affecting the willingness for cooperation (after analysis)
Source: According to the survey results
The two groups of factors mentioned above by Pearson analysis demonstrate a linear correlation
with the dependent variable Y and are eligible to be included in the regression analysis (Table 5).
Table 6. Correlation between the independent variable Y and the dependent
variable
AWARENESS
BARRIER Y1
AWARENESS Pearson
correlation 1
Meaning level
from 2 sidesBARRIER Pearson
correlation 0,405** 1
Meaning level
from 2 sides 0,002
Y Pearson
correlation 0,396** -0,391** 1
Meaning level
from 2 sides 0,002 0,002
*, **, and *** represent significance at the 10%, 5%, and 1% level, using two-tailed
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The
willingness to
participate in
cooperation
Awareness
of benefits Barriers

tests.
Source: According to the survey results
After running the SPSS software, the author has a table of parameters in the regression equation
below:
Table 7. Parameters in the regression equation
Model
Non-standardized
coefficient Standardiz
ed
coefficien
t Beta
Value
t
Level
of
signif
ica-
nce
Multi-collinear
B Standar
d error
Acceptan
ce VIF
1 (Coefficie
nt) 2,091 0,500 4,185 0,000
AWARENE
SS 0,853 0,131 0,663 6,498 0,000 0,836 1,196
BARRIER - 0,812 0,126 - 0,660 -
6,466 0,000 0,836 1,196
a. Dependent variable: Y
Adjustment factor R2: 0,504
Source: According to the survey results
The two variables AWARENESS and BARRIER are significant at sig <5%, which is statistically
significant. The results also show that there is no multi-collinear phenomena in this model (due
to VIF <2). Based on the standardized beta coefficient of multivariate regression analysis results,
there is a regression equation:
Y1 = 0,663* AWARENESS - 0,660* BARRIER + e
Therefore, hypothesis H1: The recognition of benefits positively affects the willingness to
participate in cooperation is accepted.
And, hypothesis H4: Barriers have a negative effect on the willingness to participate in
cooperation is accepted.
Besides, two hypotheses H1 (Recognition of benefits has a positive effect on the willingness to
cooperate) and H3 (Drivers have a positive effect on the willingness to cooperate) are
eliminated during EFA factor analysis.
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