How Can Academic Business Research Support the Finnish Software Industry?

Abstract

This paper describes preliminary results of an interview study on business research regarding the software industry in Finland. For the study, we interviewed 30 people in 4 positions in Finnish universities. Overall, adopting a long-term approach in studying a given question was considered to be the essential strength of research done in universities. Obtaining funding for such research was considered to be a major weakness. There also appears to be a mismatch between policy organizations and what researchers wish to research, and that research should be more centrally themed. Several trends in the software industry were considered worthy areas of inquiry from a practitioner viewpoint, however not as appealing from an academic perspective. The respondents also considered that there are no “national level” challenges that would be specific to the software industry. Obtaining finance for commercializing and productizing inventions that emerge from basic research was considered a problem, though Finland has an extensive publicly supported innovation system.