Innovation and technology transfer: a framework for clustering intermediation roles

Intermediation has become a key role in the complex realm of technology transfer projects. In innovation and technology transfer literature the number of mentions on intermediaries and their involvement in the process have expanded, which has triggered a surge in specific literature on the intermediation roles. Several authors have not only proposed new intermediation roles but also complemented and clarified previous ones. In this research, a review of the literature is made, focused on the role and involvement of intermediaries in innovation and technology transfer, covering more than thirty years and referring to four major databases. Following the analysis and discussion of the findings, the results are synthetized in a conceptual framework proposal, clustering thirteen key intermediation roles. Each of these role clusters describes a set of responsibilities, functions and main intermediation activities. Findings show that when it comes to intermediation roles, literature is yet too fragmented and scattered, with little to no connections between the proposed roles. The main contribution of this paper is to contribute to and to provide a comprehensive overview of otherwise scattered and disperse knowledge about the intermediation role.