“One foot in industry, the other in academia”: Why professional services want adjunct professors as employees?

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine professional service firms' (PSFs) motives and benefits related to their engagement in knowledge transfer interactions with universities via their employees also acting as adjunct professors (APs). Design/methodology/approach The study adopts a qualitative approach relying mainly on data collected via semi-structured interviews with both top managers and APs employed by five engineering consultancies operating in Sweden. Findings The findings suggest that, while seeking stability is the major determinant of engagement in relations with universities via APs, PSFs highpoint the significance of reciprocity and legitimacy motives. The most substantial benefits appear to be related to firms' access to academic research, core competencies and human resource development as well as marketing outcomes. Benefits are found to be dynamic in character with higher-order benefits being generated by low-order over time. Research limitations/implications The findings rely on a small sample of PSFs and should be verified by future research with larger samples of PSFs operating in a broader range of industries and national contexts. Practical implications The study results may be of interest to managers of both firms and universities interested in establishing, formalising or broadening university-industry interactions. Originality/value The study advances the current knowledge on the rationales of service firms engaged in various university-industry knowledge transfer interactions by making empirical and conceptual contributions to the understanding of adjunct professorship as a particular form of such interactions.