رضا اسدی فرد

During the recent years, several studies have been conducted on the factors affecting the creation of innovation in the innovation system. , Technology exchange intermediaries have also received attention due to the multiple functions they perform in order to facilitate innovation. In recent years, many technology exchange intermediaries have emerged in Iran's innovation system due to government support. However, due to the many challenges they face, these actors are not able to perform their mediation role efficiently. Therefore, the present study has identified a set of the most important challenges of technology exchange intermediaries in Iran's innovation system by using a qualitative approach and interviewing 19 people from the field of technology exchange in the country. In this regard, the text of the interviews was coded, analyzed, and finally 16 challenges were identified in two categories: internal challenges (due to the poor performance of intermediaries) and external challenges (due to the poor performance of other components of the innovation system). Among the most important challenges are "not being recognized as an active legal entity in the innovation system", "not understanding the value of the services of technology exchange intermediaries", "lack of a business model and avoidance by cooperation parties", "high risk of technology exchange intermediary activity" ", "Dependence on the government and government support",

The university is not only one of the main and well-known components of most innovation ecosystems, but sometimes it is the core of the formation and development of an ecosystem. Identifying the factors affecting the formation and growth of a university-based innovation ecosystem is the main goal of this study. This qualitative study identifies the factors influencing the formation of university-based innovation ecosystems in developed countries by comparing them with a sample of these ecosystems in Iran as a developing country (Innovation Ecosystem of Sharif Industry). The specific challenges of this ecosystem and the alternative solutions used in it are identified and the formation pattern of this innovation ecosystem is explained. Data analysis of this study is theme analysis, and a network of factors affecting the formation of these ecosystems is formed. Based on the results of this research, the factors are classified into 4 main categories, including the type of collaborations, the way of institutionalization, activities, and characteristics of actors.

Creating demand for technological products, financing innovation, outsourcing research and development, etc. are among the effective actions of large firms in interaction with knowledge-based firms. On the other hand, knowledge-based firms can also play an effective role in meeting the technological needs of large firms with their scientific and technical ability do However, the interaction of these firms is facing problems due to various reasons and the cooperation of these two pillars of Iran's knowledge-based economy is far from its desired position. In the meantime, government policies can play a significant role in facilitating these connections. South Korea is one of the governments that has taken effective steps to develop interaction between firms by passing the Law on Mutually Beneficial Cooperation between Large Firms and Small Firms and forming the Ministry of Small and Medium Enterprises and Startups. This research, with a comparative analysis and a comparative study of the policies for the development of technological cooperation between South Korea and Iran and the division of the policy tools of these two governments into three categories of tools including tools for stimulating demand, tools for stimulating supply and tools for improving cooperation infrastructure, looking for solutions to develop these cooperations in Iran Is. The focus on supply stimulation tools and cooperation infrastructures is remarkable in Iran, but unlike South Korea, which has used important tools to stimulate demand, there is a serious gap in demand stimulation tools in Iran.

According to several studies, one of the factors that can lead to the sustainability of a collaborative network and its evolution over time is the strengthening of relationships between network members. The study of nanotechnology laboratory network as a network with a history of cooperation in the field of science and technology in Iran during 1394-1398 using social network analysis shows the increase in the sustainability of this network in terms of relationships between network members. Therefore, this study seeks to identify important factors affecting the sustainability of collaborative networks. The status of the network in the years leading to 1394 and 1398 compared using social network analysis in seven areas of cooperation to achieve this goal. The factors affecting the strengthening of relationships between network members were identified from the social capital view and prioritized using the TOPSIS method to identify the reasons for this improvement. The obtained results show that to strengthen relationships between members of nanotechnology laboratory network, factors of programs and policies of network management, network evolution, the experience of previous relationships with other network members, programs and policies of network members, and network membership duration, respectively, are in the highest priority.

Imposing sanctions on some industries in Iran over the years have led many large industries to seek supplies from domestic companies. In these circumstances, and given that many needs are met through the collaboration of companies, the development of technological collaboration seems essential. Therefore, many large companies are looking for technological collaboration with other companies. Despite the need for technological collaboration in the current situation, technological collaboration faces serious challenges and in some cases this collaboration does not take shape. Hence, the government could develop collaborations by establishing policy tools. So, this research aims to identify the policy tools for the development of technological collaboration between industries and knowledge-based companies to achieve the desired situation in country. In this regard, by conducting purposeful interviews with experts in the field, the policy tools for the development of technological collaboration were extracted and examined by content analysis. These tools can be classified into three categories: supply stimulation tools, demand stimulation tools and infrastructure improvement tools.

In recent years, due to significant changes in the business environment, most large and small firms have been forced to create asymmetric technological collaboration with each other. Although studies have been conducted in this area, most of them lack an ecosystem approach to identifying the actors involved in the process of collaboration and their role, as well as previous studies focusing on developed countries. Therefore, the present study seeks to explain the ecosystem of asymmetric technological collaboration between large industrial firms and small knowledge-based firms in the field of nanotechnology in Iran (as a developing country) through the case study method (8 cases). Data were collected through interviews with representatives of the parties and other stakeholders involved in the collaboration process, as well as a review of relevant documents. Data analysis (Thematic Analysis) led to the extraction of maps and key players and their roles in the asymmetric technological collaboration ecosystem. The most important contribution is explaining asymmetric technological collaboration between large and small knowledge-based firms in the innovation ecosystem, as well as identifying essential roles such as stimulator of large firms and trust builder.

The nature of future jobs will be different from what we have today, due to trends and changes in the society. Therefore, one cannot expect trained human resources in past jobs to have the potential to play a role in new and emerging jobs in the future. Meanwhile, as one of the sectors with high employment potential, the agricultural sector will also see job changes under the influence of transformative trends. Therefore, the present research seeks to conduct a future study of agricultural jobs. For this purpose, the qualitative approach of environmental scanning has been used as a method. In this process, apart from reviewing documents and reports, 13 experts selected by snowball sampling from different fields of agriculture familiar with training and development of agricultural jobs were also interviewed. The value of the agreement coefficient between the evaluators (Cohen’s Kappa) was sufficient. Overall, the results indicate that on the one hand, trends such as reducing economic potential and shrinking agricultural land and consequently increasing the risk of agricultural activities have had negative impacts on employment. On the other hand, trends of increasing population and the necessity of agricultural products for society are factors with significant potential to curb the decline in demand for agricultural jobs. The outcome of these factors will eventually lead to the emergence of jobs based on higher-profit, knowledge-based products, and focus on waste reduction or business recovery.

The success of the technology transfer process from university requires institutions within and around universities. The concept of capacity building for technology transfer means empowering these institutions as much as possible to interact with other actors to commercialize academic technologies and bring them to market. Therefore, identifying the factors affecting the success of these institutions and strengthening them is one of the goals of the present study. In this research, which is a qualitative study with a case study strategy, we try to determine the influential factors in the capacity building of technology transfer with a focus on the Sharif innovation ecosystem. To collect information, using the targeted sampling method, knowledgeable experts in various institutions related to technology transfer in the Sharif Innovation Area were interviewed. Data analysis was performed by the theme analysis method. Based on the results of this study, the capacity-building framework for technology transfer from university has five main categories, including; The university Policy, the participation researcher, Industry accompaniment, organizational factors of mediators, and Policy-making body. In other words, the success of technology transfer is due to the integrity and transparency of the role of these institutions and accurate knowledge of the criteria of each.

Networking is performed by physically aligning its members and, in a real network, the correct placement of network components and the interaction between them are based on the network perspective and complementary capabilities for achieving continuous growth and set goals. Therefore, it is necessary to assign a role to network orchestration in the network formation and configuration, the network collaborative management, and ultimately network success. Despite a notable volume of research done in this regard, the problem of managing collaborative networks, different types of such networks, and differences between them require further study. This study aims to compare the types of orchestration structures of formal collaborative networks in Iran. To this end, based on judicial sampling, 5 selected collaborative networks were compared with by content analysis method and modeling of a valid orchestration model. The research results showed that collaborative networks in Iran followed three types of Shared orchestration structure, Lead Organization (orchestration networks), and each of these structures has different performance according to the type of collaborative networks in different areas. Therefore, when forming a network, it is necessary to select an orchestration structure that fits the characteristics of the network. Accordingly, in the end, a number of suggestions were made for each of the structures.

Many investments in research and development have been made to stimulate the formation of cooperative relations and have significantly improved economic growth and the performance of the national innovation system. Numerous studies have already been conducted on relationships between members of the networks; however, there are gaps such as insufficient attention to government actors in these studies. The present study seeks to develop a model for strengthening relationships between the members of social capital theory-oriented collaborative networks of science and technology in Iran so that the nature of members of the network also considered in terms of their being public or private. It is a case study, and the members of the nanotechnology laboratory network are the statistical population. In the first step, factors that influence the strengthening of relationships between the members of the network were identified through a literature review (Related to social capital theory) and adjusted by the experts’ consensus. Then using the interpretive structural modeling, those factors were compared and prioritized within ternary compositions of private-private, private-public, and public-public. The results show that the factors of programs and policies of network management, the experience of previous relationships, and the duration of membership are three radical factors in different compositions of public-public, private-public, and private-private. Also, the factor of programs and policies of network members is a radical and influential one in the public-public composition.

Changes in the business environment over recent years have led many large companies to seek asymmetric technological collaboration with small firms. However, because of the complexity and multidimensionality of collaboration process, their failure rate is high. Therefore, it is necessary to identify the success factors of asymmetric technological collaboration. However, most previous studies focused on the study of one specific factor or have been conducted in the context of developed countries. Therefore, the present article attempts to identify the essential factors for the success of collaboration by studying 8 cases (Multi-case study) of asymmetric technological collaboration in Iran's nanotechnology sector.The results of the analysis led to the identification of 16 essential success factors for asymmetric technological collaborations, including transparency of goals and tasks, alignment of technology with the requirements of large firms and information asymmetry

A major indicator of networks’ success is developing stable relationships and collaboration among the members. In fact, collaboration is the key to successful performance of members and the entire network. However, collaboration among the members of a network is a complex phenomenon requiring a comprehensive approach. A theory that can explain the relationships among the members of a network is Social Capital Theory. This research aims to develop a framework to analyze the relationships among the members of the formal collaborative networks of science and technology through the lens of Social Capital Theory. Using systematic review, 44 valid documents retrieved from WOS database, were selected, reviewed and codified using meta-synthesis approach. In the synthesis process, three main dimensions of relational, cognitive and structural and 24 sub-dimensions were revealed.

Significant changes in the business environment have led many large companies to tend to asymmetric technological collaboration with startups. Despite several benefits of these collaborations for both sides, they may face many challenges in their Partnership. These challenges have rarely been uncovered in the previous studies particularly in the context of developing countries. We utilized a mixed research method to explore collaboration challenges in Iran. Firstly, we prepared a list of main collaboration challenges through investigating the literature and in depth Interviews with key informants. Secondly, we conducted a survey using a questionnaire and received 52 responds from related people to asymmetric collaboration projects. The results showed that actors involved in the collaboration process disagree on 11 challenges. We also found that contraty on the literature “misusing the large company's brand” is not a challenging issue for the collaboration in nano sector of Iran. In addition, some new challenges were identified for asymmetric collaboration that was not mentioned in literature, including; weak collaboration culture, and lack of matchmaking infrasctures.

Although science and technology collaborative networks (STCNs) have been studied and investigated for quite a while, the challenges of orchestrating these networks have received insignificant attention. In this paper, five collaborative networks in the field of strategic technologies laboratories, scientific laboratories, biotechnology, molecular medicine, and herbal medicine, established by the government agency in Iran in the years 2000-2018, were studied. In this paper, with systematic review of research, 41 challenges of the orchestrating formal collaborative networks of science and technology in Iran were identified at the level of network analysis. A researcher-made questionnaire was developed and distributed among the knowledgeable 5 selected collaborative networks, which were among the most active formal collaborative networks of science and technology in Iran. For analyzes, exploratory factor analysis and analysis of main factors and varimax rotation were used. Of the 41 indicators identified, 19 factor indexes were below 0.5 and excluded from the analysis, and 22 indicators in the second stage and after the rotation were classified in 6 categories. According to the characteristics of the indicators in the classes, 6 titles were named for the classes: 1- membership (2 indicators), 2- network structure (6 indicators), 3- network position (3 indicators), 4- knowledge mobility (3 indicators), 5- appropriability (3 indicators) and 6- Stability (5 indicators). In the end, research limitations were also presented.

Collaborative networks have been acknowledged as an efficient tool for the optimized management of resources, knowledge transfer between entities, sharing of assets and reduction of development risks in the industrial, technologic, business and economic sectors. The global experience indicates that a single firm or organization does not have all the necessary capabilities and assets for introducing fundamental innovations to the market in fast-growing areas of science and technology. Under these circumstances, networks can act as the origin of innovation. Networking is not a new approach in the world. However, over the last few decades, attention has grown considerably over networks and the relationships among agents within them. There are two patterns for establishing science and technology networks. Beside bottom-up networks created spontaneously by individuals or organizations, there is another type of collaborative networks, which governmental organizations often establish them as formal planned, top-bottom entities. These networks are formed as governmental policy tools for pursuing certain national or regional goals. In this paper, firstly, we introduce the network concept and its functions. Then there is a discussion about the rationale of government interventions in establishing the formal S&T networks particularly in a developing country like Iran. We also elaborate on how these networks are used as policy tools for the support and development of science and technology.

Despite many studies done on S&T collaboration networks، the relationships among the members of such networks has been less investigated. Present study has addressed the intra-network relationships of the members of INLN during the years 2004-16. The statistical population of this research includes all the members of INLN network and semi-structured interviews have been conducted with a number of key informants in order to identify the types of relationships. Using content analysis method، 21 types of relationships were identified and classified into 7 categories. Subsequently، using a questionnaire، the dyadic relationships between the member Laboratories were investigated and analyzed by SNA approach. The researched results revealed that in terms of intensity of communications، private centers have the most relationships followed by research institutes and universities respectively. Also، organizational motivations، interaction spaces and motivated people have played an important role in developing the collaboration relationships between network members.

An effective collaborative network consists of a variety of members that are different in goals, knowledge, abilities, competences and advantages, attitudes and culture, and the importance of balancing their composition and managing network communications is very important. The management of official networks of science and technology cooperation in Iran is at the orchestra level. Despite network research efforts, network management has been largely neglected.Therefore, in this paper, after studying the research done in this field, in order to better understand the effective variables and understand the existing dynamics, using a fuzzy dematel technique and a system dynamic modeling approach, a dynamic model is proposed, By drawing the causal diagrams (CLD), he helps to better understand the role of the orchestrator in the official networks of science and technology cooperation in Iran. The results indicate that the ability of the orchestrator, the trust and motivation of the network members, the process of socialization of members, and network sustainability are among the most important factors in the management of networks.

With regard to the competitive environment of the business over the past few decades, companies have been innovative to maintain their vitality and position in the business environment. However, since the innovation does not occur in isolation, companies are collaborating with each other to create innovation and technology. Meanwhile, the intensity of technological collaboration between large and small technology based firms is greater in term of their different characteristics, as well as their access to complementary resources. The technological collaboration between companies is a complex and challenging subject, which different factors influencing its formation and success. Therefore, identifying the factors (Driving and restraining forces) affecting technological collaboration and pay attention to them in the process of interaction between large and small technology based firms can help to succeed. for this purpose, using a systematic literature review and searching the "web of Knowledge" database, 1488 articles about technological collaboration were extracted which after evaluating them,57 of them were identified as valid and related articles. In the following, using meta-synthesis methods to analyze and coding the selected articles. The results of coding and their composition suggest that, in total, the factors (Driving and restraining forces) affecting the technological collaboration between large and small technology based firms can be categorized as six dimensions: strategic, organizational features, legal and institutional infrastructures, technology and industry, relational. It is worth noting that in the article, in addition to the fact that all the factors influencing technological collaboration are identified comprehensively, the type and condition of the influence of factors (Driving forces and Restraining forces) are also discussed