Triple Helix Model’s (THM) impact on enhancing creativity and skills within UAE public and private sectors

Organizations and businesses cannot depend completely on their own to generate new ideas for innovation and development in present knowledge based societies. Consequently, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced 2015 as the Year of Innovation and excellence awards have been established aiming to boost cooperation between various sectors in the country. Therefore, the concept of the Triple Helix (university–industry–government) was found as a model of innovation. The aim of this research is to establish the impact of a Triple Helix approach on enhancing creativity and skills within UAE public and private sectors. It explores the concept of the Triple Helix Model (THM) in the context of the UAE public and private sectors focusing on its existence, implementation, barriers and drivers. Methods of analysis include both qualitative and quantitative approach in which a conceptual framework was derived from the literature review, a survey was developed and distributed to a sample of employees from different organizations, and follow-up interviews were carried out with key stakeholders (in which their departments are implementing/ involved in the THM). The findings exposed the stakeholders’ perception about the importance of the concept and each actor’s role in the THM, the limited utilization of the concept among the organizations, and the challenges in terms of relational barriers and knowledge sharing. The research findings reveal that TH approach has a positive influence on enhancing creativity and skills within UAE sectors and several recommendations have been proposed such as leadership involvement and support, designing organizational innovation strategy, and the addition of society helix.