The effects of collaboration with a research partner on managers' attitudes to R&D: the case of TBG

Abstract

Assessing the effect of participation in a research collaboration, through TBG, on managers' attitudes to R&D requires gauging the attitudes of the managers who participated and determining what the effects are. This research focused on Technology for Business Growth (TBG), a government technology programme for generating collaborative projects between industry and national research institutions in a wide range of technologies. The TBG programme, which is a business unit of the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology, provides matching finance to approved R&D collaborations between industry and New Zealand's national science institutes. Research was conducted through forty personal interviews with senior managers of organisations who had participated in TBG funded collaborations. This paper argues that participating in a research collaboration alone does not have any great effect on managers' attitudes towards R&D, but that the benefits gained from such collaboration are highly dependent on the attitudes regarding R&D held by the management prior to the commencement of the partnership. Those managers who enter into TBG collaborations with the intention of building up their organisations knowledge base and forging new research contacts will ultimately gain much from the process, whereas those who see TBG's funding as a means to an end will gain very little outside the boundaries of their project. Managers' attitudes towards TBG are generally positive, and the majority of managers reported that they would enter into another collaboration through the programme if the opportunity presented itself. Research also showed that managers did not think the New Zealand government was seriously committed to industrial R&D and that TBG should be provided with a more significant resources base in order to enable them to fund more such collaborations.