Knowledge Exchange and Business Schools – Hidden Gems? Models of Interaction

Innovation, Knowledge Exchange and Business Schools - hidden gems?
Introduction & aim
Knowledge Exchange (KE) and innovation, while a growing impetus in UK universities, is often still a hidden and undervalued academic activity. This is particularly acute in UK Business Schools . With one in six students in the UK attending a business school, and a decline in research funding for business research in recent years, KE can be seen as a lower priority than the two core academic aims of teaching and developing research.
This research project, commissioned by the UK Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS), set out to understand knowledge exchange and innovation work in business schools - its creation, growth, development and potential, as well as to develop practical recommendations for developing KE and innovation.
In a first-of-its-kind study in the UK, we have found three key aspects of knowledge exchange in Business Schools, which have practical application beyond school boundaries to helping other disciplinary environments to develop knowledge exchange, innovation and engagement
Methodology
We designed an exploratory mixed methods research project, as this is the first known project of its kind in the UK, with:
- A scoping literature review on KE and business schools
- A series of interviews with KE practitioners, academics, senior leaders and Deans
- An academic roundtable on the key issues identified in the review and interviews
- A policy roundtable on the key issues identified across all research strands
- A survey of Deans and senior leaders

These results were analysed using thematic analysis and findings synthesised.
Results
We have synthesised the findings from each of these methods with our practical experience of working in knowledge exchange and innovation ""on the ground"" to create a framework of development of knowledge exchange.
This is framed around our three key findings - that KE is:
1. A Symbiotic Process - Knowledge exchange in its truest form is an exchange of knowledge, activity and knowhow between external organisations and academics. Innovation can only truly be successful if there is a two way interaction and learning - while often spoken about, this is challenging to do in practice.
2. An Applied Phenomenon - Knowledge Exchange and Innovation are by their definitions, applied. But the application itself is often not valued in an academic context, creating a barrier to doing the work, and hiding the KE when it is occurring, therefore missing key benefits for the institution.
3. A Pathway to Impact - KE and innovation create impact, but are under-recognised as pathways. By actively celebrating the role of KE and innovation in research, through understanding their role in research impact, we can gain recognition of KE and innovation as significant parts of the academic role.
Discussion & recommendations
Consistent across all of our research findings (literature, interviews, surveys and roundtables), is a significant inconsistency in terms of knowledge exchange strategy and operations. Also consistent is that where knowledge exchange happens, it bolsters and improves both research and education in business schools.
But KE is often a bottom-up, self-developed activity, sometimes discovered by accident. It is deemed important to Business School leadership, and good work is celebrated and valued within business schools. But there is a clear lack of consistent, planned knowledge exchange strategy, in order to develop both knowledge exchange itself, and also the enabling leadership and governance necessary to ensure that engagement is a key aspect of business school activity.
The disparity in esteem between education, research and knowledge exchange is not actually borne out in reality. There is much to celebrate, and schools are keen to do so, and knowledge exchange clearly helps to develop research and education practice. But due to this lack of obvious strategy, a lot of knowledge exchange is hidden, and is not able to enable both excellent education and research in a structured way.
There are limitations to the study - our survey was relatively small and we aim to develop a more wide ranging survey to gather more statistically significant results in future projects. The voice of the business/ external partner is also missing from this work, and will form the next phase.
Conclusion
We propose a practical development framework that applies not only to business schools, but to all areas of the university. Central to this framework is recognition of knowledge exchange and innovation as being key enablers of excellent research and education - the two core missions of universities. We propose developing a top-down strategic approach, as well as embracing the bottom-up self developed engagement activities as important parts of the future academic role.