Implicit intermediaries, ecosystem embeddedness and the place of universities in SMEs’ portfolio knowledge sourcing strategies

While universities are a key part of entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystems, usage of university knowledge by firms has traditionally been very low. Here, the technology “valley of death” and many other associated barriers to university-industry knowledge transfer and eventual impact remain valid. To attenuate such barriers, intermediaries, such as Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) have been argued to be crucial in university – industry transfer. However, network transitivity in triadic relations within the ecosystem may also render other ecosystem actors “implicit intermediaries” in the transfer of knowledge from universities and indeed other sources of knowledge firms simultaneously use. For example, a firm’s links with government agencies may enhance such a firm’s usage of knowledge from universities, standards bodies, or commercial labs. Here, government agencies would be implicit intermediaries with their effect enabled by network transitivity dynamics. Within an entrepreneurial ecosystem, organisations from the various domains (e.g. policy, finance, professional services, suppliers, and competitors) may thus act as implicit intermediaries for knowledge transfer between SMEs and universities and a portfolio of other sources. Indeed, beyond individual triads, firms may be simultaneously linked to multiple actors in the ecosystem with greater such linkage indicating greater embeddedness and thus greater scope for knowledge transfer through a richer web of implicit intermediaries. Drawing on Multivariate Probit analysis of data from the Survey of Knowledge Exchange Activity by United Kingdom Businesses, this paper finds that SMEs’ links with industry peers, government agencies, finance providers, and professional services have triadic and embeddedness effects on usage of knowledge from universities and other sources but with different effects for the different sources. This expands understanding of how ecosystem interactions impact SMEs’ portfolio knowledge sourcing strategies with implications for regional ecosystem policy and business strategy.