RESPONSIBLE ENTREPRENEURSHIP VISION DEVELOPMENT AND ETHICS

Triple Helix principles and cultural barriers in a
post-transition business environment
Besarta VLADI
European University of Tirana, Albania
besarta.vladi@uet.edu.al
Abstract: Sustainable development and innovation are not new concepts in developed countries. Global
Innovation Index and Global Competitiveness Index systematically rank in top list most developed countries
of the world such as Sweden, Switzerland, UK, USA, Japan etc. These countries are not simply developed,
but they also take care on sustainable development. Referring to World Bank definition, sustainable
development means “Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of
future generations to meet their own needs.” (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1997).
It is difficult to talk about sustainable development without explaining the contribution of ‘Triple Helix’ concept
in this kind of development. In general, Triple Helix means a strong cooperation between University,
Industry and Government. (Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff, 1998). But what happens in a post-transition and
developing country (such as Albania) seems to be quite different. In a developing country these three pillars:
University, Industry and Government, operates very independent from each other. Furthermore, in some
cases, one of them may become an obstacle for two others. The main reason why this happens is related
with cultural barriers that come from a long process of being in transition. The paper is a critical analysis,
mainly based on literature review. At the end of the paper, there are given some recommendations how to
foster the cooperation between these three pillars (university, business, government) in order to offset the
negative role of culture in this cooperation, improve the performance of Albania in future Global Indexes
and moves the general economy of the country towards sustainable development. Open Innovation Model
seems to be a good possibility for organizations in Albania in order to go beyond barriers of culture and to
strength their cooperation.
Keywords: sustainable development, triple helix, open innovation, organizational culture.
Introduction
Organizational culture is considered as the entirety of values, beliefs, assumptions, common
perceptions of a group, valid within a particular organization (Schein, 2004). Organizational
culture and organizational climate is not the same thing. Culture is somewhat more
abstract and long-term, while climate is related to daily activities of the organization and