• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.77-84
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• 2013

In this paper, we focus the changing role of universities of University-Industry Collaboration (UIC) for enriching the regional business ecosystem network. For this research, we analyze 'Regional Innovation System(RIS)' - a specific UIC program- which provides a marketing service for firms, especially, SMEs with a specific problem by a group of consultants including CEOs, professors, and heads of regional public or private service providers. Then we have analyzed using network analysis how the business network was changed from RIS. Moreover, we will interview the participants in the important position of the network and investigate the reason for bringing a change in the network structure by using this program. This study illustrates that various types of network are formed between university and SMEs. Furthermore, the networks surrounding SMEs are extended to the other people connected to them. This means that the business network of SMEs had been diversified via the facilitation of university. This study throws new highlights on the new role for the university as a network promoter in addition to the partner as a technology-provider in the regional business ecosystem. Moreover, the network analysis between before-and-after can be used for the evaluation of the effectiveness of the various UIC programs.