From knowledge creation to commercialization performance: Non-linear effects on green and digital energy start-ups

Knowledge transfer success in alliances can establish competitive advantages by enhancing an organization’s ability to identify, assimilate, and apply new knowledge, commonly referred to as absorptive capacity of knowledge. This process is facilitated through interorganizational relationships, connections, or links characterized by trust, reciprocity, and frequent interactions, which improve the flow of knowledge between partners. This study aims to investigate the impact of the absorptive capacity of knowledge on the success of knowledge transfer, with interorganizational link strength considered as a mediating variable. The analysis was conducted with an initial sample of 154 organizations from the agro-industry cluster in the Santander region of Colombia. Data were collected using a structured Likert-scale questionnaire, targeting leaders and project managers involved in collaborative initiatives. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to analyze the data and test the proposed hypotheses. The results reveal that absorptive capacity significantly and positively influences both the success of knowledge transfer and interorganizational link strength. Besides, interorganizational link strength has a positive and significant impact on the success of knowledge transfer. Furthermore, interorganizational link strength mediates the relationship between absorptive capacity and knowledge transfer success. The study demonstrates that enhancing a firm’s absorptive capacity of knowledge improves technology transfer outcomes in collaborative alliances. Also, it reveals that strong interorganizational relationships play a significant role in facilitating knowledge exchange. Together, these findings offer new insights into the synergistic interplay between absorptive capacity and link strength as key enablers of the success of knowledge transfers.

Acknowledgment
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the “IIoT Platform for Training Professionals in Fourth Industrial Revolution Technologies” project (code 2824 at the Universidad Industrial de Santander). This project’s resources and expertise in knowledge transfer processes were instrumental in the success of our study. Special thanks to the project team for their invaluable contributions.

Innovative development of Ukraine is possible due to the introduction of an effective mechanism for the promotion of commercially attractive scientific ideas and developments, which are produced at universities, into the domestic and international markets. It is extremely difficult for research universities to negotiate the transfer of their developments due to the lack of an extensive technology transfer infrastructure where an information system would be in place to exchange technological requests and proposals. The authors demonstrate a modern toolkit for the transfer of knowledge and technology, which is actively used by the international academic community and contributes to the consideration of modern specifics in the organization of innovative marketing in research universities. In the article, the authors analyze the role of social and communication tools, namely media and online social platforms, such as Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, or YouTube, or other communication search platforms, including Enterprise Europe Network in the technological transfer of world research universities and Ukrainian university practice. The dominance of positive features in the use of media tools for technology transfer proves its viability for the Ukrainian market. Using the tools of media sector it was proposed to develop a modern strategy for commercializing the results of innovative activities of research universities. The article offers considering the process of bringing to commercially attractive results of experimental research at universities based on the methodology of network marketing and education.

According to social psychology researchers, categorizing a new product may involve the formation of automatic judgments at the subconscious level. This study aimed to ascertain if attitudes might be formed unintentionally when categorizing a new hybrid product under the effect of associated sensory inputs. Data were collected using an explicit and implicit approach: an explicit categorization measure, an explicit attitude scale, and the “Single Category Implicit Association Test’’ (SC-IAT), from 280 Moroccan university students having a normal sense of smell and taste, under the effects of two types of sensory stimuli (smell and taste) and according to two learning conditions linked to two categories of existing products. The data were then computed and processed using the “Statistical Package for Social Sciences” and the “Inquisit Lab’’. The study’s findings revealed that the respondents were able to categorize the new product into one of the targeted categories (depending on the learning condition of each category) after exposure to sensory stimuli (olfactory and gustatory stimuli) related to this product and were also able to form an implicit and explicit attitude towards it. The occurrence of the categorization process and the formation of these two distinct types of attitudes can be explained by the olfactory and gustatory sensory stimulation during the experiment, which helped the participants recognize the basic domain of the new product and then transfer knowledge and affects to it.