Iranian Scientific Institutions in Firms

This paper considers innovation search strategy as problem-solving activities by firms that involve the screening, creation and re-use of ideas, modification, and intelligent rejection of new and old know-how. Its aim is to investigate existing innovation search strategies of Iranian industrial firms and analyze the affecting factors on decision of firms to select scientific institutions in particular universities to acquisition of new economic knowledge on a theoretical framework based. In our empirical study of 39 Iranian industrial firms based on a survey performed by IROST, found that there are weak linkage between firms and scientific institutions. The results suggest that firms with higher basic research capabilities have likely better linkage with the scientific institutions.