THE ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN OF TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER OFFICES: DRAWING FROM AN ANALYSIS IN THE “FOOD VALLEY” OF PARMA

In today’s environments, both academics and practitioners recognise the importance of collaborations between university and industry, and thus of technology transfer activities in general. The extant literature highlights that different aspects can affect the outcome of such collaborations, among them the organisational design of technology transfer offices. Based on these premises, the aim of this paper is to map Parma University’s external relations in food science and technology-related disciplines and to uncover the nature of its knowledge exchanges and its collaborations network. This would shed some light about Parma University own entrepreneurial orientation and provide some organisational guidelines for the forthcoming TTO which is, at present, still in its “infancy” stage.