What Do We Need to Collaborate? Transfer in Universities for

Cross-organizational Collaboration

Claudia Doering

, Finn Reiche

and Holger Timinger

Institute for Data and Process Science of University of Applied Sciences Landshut, Germany

Keywords: Transfer, Collaboration, University, Process, Reference Model, Process Library, Knowledge Sharing,

University Collaboration, Platform.

Abstract: In addition to education and research, the Third Mission is one of the pillars of today's universities. The third

mission includes lifelong learning, transfer, and community engagement. It comes with new tasks and

activities for dedicated resources. To fulfil these tasks, many universities are looking for cross-organizational

cooperation. However, there is no standardized framework for such cooperation. In this paper, such a

framework for support processes is presented. It aims to provide a standardized approach to building cross-

organizational collaboration to accomplish the tasks associated with the third mission. The framework is

derived by applying the Design Science research approach. An initial evaluation is carried out by expert

reports. The framework has the potential to facilitate the establishment of new collaborations and structure

their joint activities.

1 TRANSFER MANAGEMENT

FOR COLLABORATION

The original public mission of universities comprises

research and teaching. Nowadays, however, the

activities of universities go well beyond this. The

sharing of knowledge and technology from university

and industry and society is encouraged by policy

makers throughout national governements and

regional authorities. These activities often go in line

with the so-called “Third Mission” of universities,

which incorporates the concept of a profound sharing

of research finding in form of knowledge and/or

technology from the universities to industry and

society (Rubens et al., 2017). Part of this mission are

life-long learning offers, knowledge transfer and

support for start-ups performed by universities today

(Pinheiro et al.. 2015). Multiple concepts try to

descibe these acitivities, but there is still no common

understanding of it as these acitivities are largely tied

to individual commitment or are anchored at an

institute level (Henke et al., 2016). However, the

tasks associated with the third mission bring along

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3727-8773

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2066-7323

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7992-0392

many challenges to universities, both small and large.

Alongside with a scepticism towards an academic

commercialization, there is often only limited support

and resources for transfer projects especially in

smaller universities (Rubens et al., 2017). Therefore,

the sharing of knowledge, the formation of

university-platforms and the creation of university

alliances is gaining increasingly importance. Within

a university alliance or a shared platform, best

practices, processes and knowledge can be shared

across all universities, which are member of this

alliance. For this reason, university alliances,

networks and platforms are gaining increasingly

importance as they offer, especially for smaller

universities an increased visibility, more resources,

cost savings through synergy effects and a common

apparence (Doering and Seel, 2019).

To simplify this process, a shared platform for

third-mission support processes could be used, which

will be proposed within this paper. Business

processes in general can be grouped into core, support

and management processes, whereby “support

processes were defined as instances of processes that

168

Doering, C., Reiche, F. and Timinger, H.

What Do We Need to Collaborate? Transfer in Universities for Cross-organizational Collaboration.

DOI: 10.5220/0011346600003280

In Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Smart Business Technologies (ICSBT 2022), pages 168-173

ISBN: 978-989-758-587-6; ISSN: 2184-772X

Figure 1: Causal Relation of the Initiation of Third Mission (own repesentation according to (Foxon 1997)).

generated or delivered products to internal customers

of an organization” (Kock and McQueen, 1998)

(Hammer and Champy, 2006). With regards to third

mission activities, support processes are for example

financial or judiciary processes within universtities.

Based on the previous considerations, the following

research questions arise:

RQ1: How can universities support their third

mission activities with only limited resources?

RQ2: How can support processes be displayed in a

structured manner?

In order to answer these research questions, this

paper first discusses the proposed research

methodology. Then a shared platform for third-

mission support processes is proposed, with pointing

out all relevant processes and finally, a conclusion

with an outlook on future work is outlined.

The importance of support processes in the

successful realization of third mission activities can

be seen in the analysis by F

OXON

, who developed a

causal model to describe the relationship from an idea

for a transfer project to the real execution of such a

project (see Figure 1). At the moment when

cooperation partners gather together for a third

mission activity (e.g. a transfer project), they first rely

on managerial support from e.g. the university or

faculty lead and only when everything is already

reconciled, the support structures of the university

need to be in place and provide their support. As this

is quite late in the whole initiation process many

things can deviate from the anticipated outcome.

Even if it is just that the support structures are not

capale to handle the third mission acitivity capacity-

wise, this can result in a failed project. Therefore, the

sharing of support structures and processes between

multiple universities and the implementation of a

structured process framework can support third

mission activities of universities immensly.

2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

High quality research findings are assured by a

profound and established research methodology,

which was applied in this paper (see Figure 2). The

design science research approach by H

EVNER

et. al

suggests distinct guidelines for the determination and

evaluation of research (Hevner, 2007). As this

research aims to provide a process model for third

mission activities, specific methodologies for

information systems (IS) research were applied.

Therefore, the literature search and analysis was

conducted according to the principles of

VOM

ROCKE

and O

KOLI

2015;

ROCKE ET

2009).

 Step 1: Planning of the literature search,

definition of the search area and

conceptualizing of the search

 Step 2: Identification of data bases and search

string. Scopus, ScienceDirect and IEEE Xplore

were the three main sources for bibliometric

data. In order to determine all relevant search

results, no restriction to a time frame or

publication type was applied. To identify

relevant publications in these databases a

search string was developed with the standard

phrases “transfer process” and “third mission”

and the extension phrases “university”,

“support”, “reference model” and

“administration”.

Figure 2: Design Science Research Methodology according

to H

EVNER

et. al (Hevner, 2007).

What Do We Need to Collaborate? Transfer in Universities for Cross-organizational Collaboration

169

 Step 3: Application of selection criteria. The

following inclusion and exclusion criteria were

applied to narrow down the search results:

removal of duplicates, publications in English,

citation of the publications one time or equal to

one and a mission focus on the university

sector.

 Step 4: Selection of literature according to first

title, then abstract and then full-text scan. First

irrelevant publications were removed based on

their title and their abstract, which left 11

publications for a full text reading.

The framework for support processes for third

mission activities of universities was created

according to the guidelines of H

EVNER et. al (Hevner,

2007). The design science research approach

comprises the areas knowledge base, environment

and build phase along with the rigor, design and

relevance cycles. All these aim to design and build

artifacts, which can be models, methods or constructs.

Within the scope of this research, the process

framework serves as artifact of the design science

research methodology, which was created in the

design cycle. The scientific discourse on the topic of

third mission support processes was analysed based

on the literature search (knowledge base and rigour

cycle). Expert interviews on third mission processes

in universities derived the requirements and support

processes from the environment in the relevance

cycle. All participants were employees in universities

with direct relation to third mission activities.

3 SHARED PROCESSES IN

UNIVERSITY ALLIANCES

Platforms are often used in business to achieve

uniformity and drive standardization (Gawer and

Cusumano, 2014). G

AWER points out that the term

has been used since the 16th century and has always

described something that serves as a foundation

(Gawer, 2011; Harvard Business Review, 1992).

In business, they serve as a foundation and set new

standards. thus, the largest companies rely on

platforms because they offer the best cost-benefit

relationship (Appold and Kasarda, 2011; Cusumano,

2010; Gawer, 2011). But platforms are not only used

in business, they are also used by Higher Education

Institutions. For example, universities use platform

models heavily in e-learning as e-learning platforms,

but also in other areas (Piotrowski, 2010).

Increasingly, they are also using them in the area of

transfer, although so far, they have been rather rare in

comparison (Reiche, 2022).

Since universities are becoming increasingly

process-oriented and the use of process-based

software systems is also growing continuously, the

number of modelled business processes is increasing

at the same rate (Becker et al., 2012). In consideration

of the fact that some of the third mission processes in

a university alliance also take place across

universities, the use of a shared process framework

will be demonstrated in the following.

In consideration of the fact that universities

always have to carry out comparable processes in the

initiation and implementation of Third Mission

activities (e.g. the application for funding or the

preparation of a contract between project partners), it

makes sense to use a shared process framework.

These reusable process models, which represent

context-independent standard procedures are called

reference models (Schuette and Rotthowe, 1998). The

most important advantages of the usage of reference

models are time and cost savings and an improvement

of quality in the creation of such information models

(Thomas, 2006).

Reference models can meet the special

requirements of a university alliance and simplify

collaboration. These requirements include:

 Processes must be modelled in a standardized

manner but allow for customization to

individual university circumstances.

 It must be possible to search for processes,

process descriptions and process elements.

 Processes and their descriptions must be kept

consistent.

 Processes must be visualized in a way that

users can understand.

 Employees in the university collaboration

should have the opportunity to further develop

processes and exchange information with each

other.

A shared process framework can not only simplify

the work in the administrations of the universities

participating in the university alliance, but also

promotes intra- and interorganizational cooperation

and knowledge transfer (Foxon, 1997). The ability to

extract knowledge about an organization's processes

from the collection of processes significantly

supports knowledge management.

The implementation of a common process

framework can also trigger a sustainable knowledge

transfer through the use and sharing of best practice

processes. But, the functions of a shared process

framework go even further and can not only enable a

ICSBT 2022 - 19th International Conference on Smart Business Technologies

170

Figure 3: Overview of Support Processes for Third Mission Activities (own representation).

profound knowledge management and transfer

between and within universities, it can also be used to

optimize business processes through sharing of best

practices beyond university borders (Doering and

Seel, 2020).

4 FRAMEWORK FOR SUPPORT

PROCESSES

Process models which aim to manage knowledge can

be divided into to the group of descriptive or in the

group of prescriptive models (Sprague Jan., 1999).

Whereas descriptive models outline the

characteristics of knowledge management,

prescriptive models describe aspects and approaches

and thus the management of knowledge. The

proposed process framework aims to describe the

target state of knowledge sharing and transfer in

university collaborations in regard to support

processes, which characterizes it as a prescriptive

model. This process framework is an information

model, which represents an artifact of the Design

Science process. It is therefore a result of an in-depth

literature analysis and the European survey on third

mission processes. Within the framework, the

processes were grouped into these categories (see

Figure 3):

 HR Processes

 IT Processes

 Methodological Processes

 Finance Processes

 Judiciary Processes

Within these categories, there are single processes,

which are modelled in detail in BPMN 2.0 (Business

Process Model and Notation) to show the control and

data flow. In Figure 3 an overview of all identified

support processes for third mission activities can be

seen. An example of such a process is illustrated in

Figure 3. As this is beyond the scope of this

publication, the process model just serves as an

example and shows a part of the process “Define IP

Strategy”. BPMN 2.0 as a modelling language was

chosen, as it is a standard in graphically describing

processes and it is also fairly understandable, even

without any process modelling background (Chinosi

and Trombetta, 2012). BPMN 2.0 therefore, fulfills

also the requirements set by the usage of a reference

model, as it offers a standardized way of process

modelling and allows for easy customization. As the

used symbols in BPMN 2.0 are also kept quite simple

(e.g. rhombus for gateways), the processes can be

What Do We Need to Collaborate? Transfer in Universities for Cross-organizational Collaboration

171

visualized in a way, that users can understand them

straightforward. Today, there are around 60

implementations of BPMN, according to the official

BPMN website (Object Management Group, 2022).

Consequently, the variety of tools from which

universities can choose is broad and a lot of tools are

also free to use (e.g. the Modeler by the company

Camunda).

The evaluation of the key findings of research is

one of the core activities of the Design Science

Research Methodology and aims to prove and justify

the created artifacts. An evaluation of the process

framework was conducted within universities, which

cooperate in a university collaboration in Germany.

As form of evaluation expert interviews were chosen.

All experts are employees in technology and

knowledge transfer offices, research funding

departments, finance and legal departments. They

were selected as a result of their possession of

privileged information and their responsibility in

third mission activities of their universities (Meuser

and Nagel, 2009).

5 CONCLUSION

The third mission promises new possibilities for

collaboration and transfer. It has the potential to

bridge the gap between academia, industry and

society. Education, research, lifelong learning,

transfer, and social commitment are integral parts of

today's universities.

This paper presented a framework that structures and

guides the establishment of cross-organizational

collaborations to accomplish the tasks of the third

mission. Such structures and guidance are of great

importance in facilitating the fulfilment of the third

mission. It helps to design suitable support processes

that form the basis for efficient and effective transfer

processes. The support processes are considered

important building blocks to ensure the long-term

success of the third mission.

The framework includes support processes for human

resource management, information technology,

finance, justice, and methods and processes.

The evaluation by means of expert interviews showed

that the framework is suitable for fulfilling its

purpose.

In a further step, the proposed framework is to be

integrated into a higher-level reference model that

includes all transfer activities of the universities.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The transfer project "Transfer and Innovation East-

Bavaria" is funded by the "Innovative University of

Applied Sciences" East-Bavaria 2018 – 2022

(03IHS078D).

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