*Assessing Interdependencies in Innovation Ecosystems: Evidence from the Training Partnerships… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.112558*

between university and businesses as interdependent situations that emerge, adapt to the context, and take root in some niches within open systems [33, 35–37]. The research is framed around three core assumptions:


From these assumptions, I have drawn and tested two research hypotheses (RH). The first relates to the alignment between partners that supports co-innovation processes combining international knowledge standards with localized learning (research hypothesis 1 (RH1)). The second descends from the previous: if RH1 holds then, university-business collaborations can expand co-innovation processes, leading to a knowledge ecosystem's growth (research hypothesis 2 (RH2)). The independent variable is, therefore, university-business collaborations that align actors toward a shared strategy of knowledge-based value creation. The dependent variable can be defined in terms of knowledge-based interdependencies relying on partners' alignment. In this regard, complexity theory helps understand UICs as generating interdependent situations rather than the summation of multiple actors and activities [33, 38, 39]. The notion of "emergence" refers to novelty, which does not correspond to the mere sum of its components. In emergent change, the new properties of a phenomenon do not exist in a lower unit of analysis and the observed outcome is not predictable *ex ante* [35, 36]. Thus, the focus of the analysis is on the emergence of multiscalar interdependencies by gathering empirical evidence on UICs' features, actors, and processes.

The operationalization of research rests on a single case study design [40, 41] focused on the Academy system of the University of Naples. The study is based on a naturalistic and interpretative approach to explore knowledge-based interactions, drawing on the perspectives of research participants. My involvement in the University of Naples has facilitated data access and the understanding of salient issues on training partnerships. I conducted a desk review of relevant documentation and 83 semi-structured interviews with university leaders, academy designers, managers, and trainees, administrative representatives and 54 business executives or CEOs of regional firms (see **Table 1**). Between June 2019 and March 2022, in-depth interviewing has allowed for probing the attitudes, beliefs, and motivations of the participants in the campus of San Giovanni of the University of Naples and understand the complexity of their choices and processes of value creation. In-depth interviewing also made it possible to examine participants' responses and to follow up with additional interviewing and single-layer network analysis [17]. This qualitative evidence has added to the desk document review and alongside administrative data that have allowed for reconstructing digital training offerings.

The coding of interview transcriptions has revolved around the theoretical framework of the ecosystem and its value creation strategy, while the economic theory


#### **Table 1.**

*Interviewee profile.*

categories of economies of scope, scale, and network have helped characterize the value creation process within a context of high heterogeneity of agents (see **Table 2**; [30, 42]).

To examine both the context and the processes involved in university-business partnerships, the case study design has been appropriate to investigate the nature of partners' collaboration and the results of their cooperation within the campus of San Giovanni in the Eastern part of the city of Naples. This is a peripheral urban area that, thanks to the university infrastructure, has attracted many young students, and commercial and public transport services [12]. The broader geographical context where the University of Naples is located accounts for an industry declining area that is classified as a moderately innovative and less-developed region of the European Union (The Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics – Regions (NUTS 2)), reckoning


*Source: Marra [17].*

*Assessing Interdependencies in Innovation Ecosystems: Evidence from the Training Partnerships… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.112558*

a high percentage of youth not in employment, education, or training (NEET) and youth unemployment [43]. Thus, the case study offers fruitful insights into regional development and the possibility of gathering information of an exploratory nature that otherwise would not have been possible through other forms of data collection.
