Academia-industry linkages and the role of active innovation policies: firm-level evidence in Hong Kong

This paper analyses academia-industry linkages of the Hong Kong (HK) electronics small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and investigates the role of active innovation policies in this regard. It uses data collected from a questionnaire survey in HK, focusing on three main academia-industry linkages: academic institutions as training bases, as innovation sources and as innovation partners for companies. Our analysis results show that HK companies tend to rely on hiring highly-qualified labour trained by academic institutions to gain access to advanced academic knowledge. In contrast, they do not yet perceive academic institutions as important sources or partners for their innovation activities; however, their willingness to do so seems to be positively affected by the active innovation policies on site.