Blurring Boundaries and Borders: Interlocks Between AAU Institutions and Transnational Corporations

In the contemporary knowledge economy, higher education has become an integral part of national innovation systems and is supposed to help attract globally mobile capital. From this perspective, the key organizational actors of the knowledge economy are universities and transnational corporations (TNCs). Our chapter draws on previous research on interlocks between universities and corporations, as well as on broader studies on the internationalization of higher education and global capitalism. We seek to identify the connections of TNCs with the prestigious Association of American Universities (AAU) member institutions through the individuals who simultaneously serve on the university board…