Universities are isomorphic not because of the effectiveness of their processes but because of the legitimacy assigned by institutional logic. However, sustainable development discourses invoke a novel mission for producing knowledge and innovation for sustainable development. Accordingly, this research collected data from five types of internal stakeholders' intellections of the four pillars of green university infrastructure. The analysis of data collected from 89 university stakeholders sufficient for a 90% confidence level with 5% relative tolerable error was organized as five groups in a contingency table for the chi-square test. The statistical analysis, that is, the chi-square value, indicates that all five stakeholders perceive in the same direction – that the four pillars of the green university soft infrastructure need to be reconfigured to produce green knowledge and innovation. Hence, the findings inspire the conventional universities and policymakers to transform their universities into sustainable institutions with four pillars of soft green infrastructure.

Industrial technology contributes significantly to the growth of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Japan. Driven by an intense competitive environment, businesses in Japan must continuously innovate to benefit from industrial technologies. As technological complexity increases, Japanese firms have to develop flexible knowledge acquisition and technology development methods. Collaborations and linkages with external organisations for industrial technology development and acquisition are important especially in the early growth stages of the firm. This paper analyses the results of a survey conducted in 407 companies and 20 in-depth case studies to assess the technology development needs of SMEs in Japan. The results show that capital and human resources are the major impediments to SMEs' efforts in new industrial technology development and the firms are increasingly relying on external knowledge sources to build up their technological competencies. The study describes the environment that influences the formation of such tie-ups for new products and technology development in SMEs. The results show that research links with external collaborators and knowledge networks are critical for the next phase of industry technology development in Japanese firms.