Contribution of Certain Enablers to Success Criteria of Science and Technology Parks

The science parks have important role in development of technology and are able to make economic growth of the countries. The purpose of this article is the presentation of a fuzzy expert system to evaluate the science and technology parks. One of the problems for evaluating Science and Technology parks is to have the high number of criteria and science parks and presenting a system which is able to compare this high number of science parks, with many criteria, is one of the findings of this paper. At the end, we have described a numerical example. This article is an useful information resource for managers of Science and Technology parks and interested parties to invest and to recognize the science parks better.

Science parks as area developments have existed for decades and captivated the attention of academia and policy-makers for their potential impact on firms and regions. Only limited attention is given to the needs of science park firms regarding what science parks offer. Therefore, this study focused on science park facilities and services and how firms perceive the benefits associated with these attributes. An online survey distributed among tenants on seven science parks in the Netherlands yielded 103 respondents. An a priori list of science park attributes was presented in order to gain insight in how the respondents associated these facilities and services with potential benefits. The benefits considered were derived from proximity and innovation literature within the science park context. In general, science park attributes were associated with either proximity benefits or benefits related to the SP real estate. Based on a cluster analysis of organisational characteristics three tenant types were identified. The three tenant types sought different benefits through different attributes. Commercially-orientated firms associated science park attributes as ways for being near customers. Mature science-based firms associated attributes with a wider range of benefits, such as image benefits, being near customers and other firms. Young technology-based firms were more cost-driven and focused on image benefits. The associations between various types of facilities and the benefits that tenant types seek, provide insights for practitioners in terms of the design and management of science parks and add to the body of knowledge of science parks within the context of innovation management.

This paper aims to expand our understanding of talent attraction management in Science Parks with a specific interest in university students/alumni as a human and strategic resource. The underlying rationale is how the links with universities can be supported and how the Science Park management can contribute to successful relationships with universities and university students/alumni, in order to develop tenant firms and the park itself. A questionnaire was sent out in 2018–120 parks. This study includes 25 variables, and four significant regression models are presented. The main finding is that Science Park talent attraction activities act as a mediating variable, which affects the informal and formal partnerships between students and firms/universities as well as how the park management can contribute to successful relationships. By attracting students, tenant firms can have a positive impact on their performance as well as Science Park development.

Science parks are created to support the development and growth of knowledge-based businesses and to foster the economic development of a region. Based on an exploratory qualitative study, this research project aims, firstly, to understand the expectations of businesses established in science parks, which is not very well documented in the literature and, secondly, to highlight the motivations of a business to settle in a science park. In order to do so, the research is based on a constructivist approach. Twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted between September 2016 and April 2017 with managers of organizations established in seven science parks in the province of Quebec, Canada. The analysis these interviews identified six major motivations of businesses to settle in a science park. It also revealed eleven major expectations of the science park's contributions for a business established. As a contribution, this research provides some recommendations not only for the managers of science parks, but also for the managers of businesses who want to be established in a science park. This research provides insights for science park managers about the incentives to set up to attract new business and about the support to provide for the business established in a science park in their development.

Technology development is increasingly important for creating efficient and sustainable economies. One of the innovation policies are science parks, area developments where technology-based firms and knowledge-based institutions co-locate. Preferences of technology-based firms relate to the presence and quality of certain facilities, services, and location attributes, which are means for achieving organizational goals. As science parks are locations that generally offer a mix of such facilities and services, it can be configured in numerous ways. The gap between what science parks offer and what tenants need has been acknowledged as troublesome by science park managers and tenants as this gap can negatively influence the performance of science parks and their tenants. Therefore, this study focuses on the preferences of technology-based firms in relation to science park attributes and if different target groups can be distinguished from these preferences. To collect data about preferences, an online survey is distributed among technology-based firms both on and off science parks in the Netherlands. Using the technique of stated-choice experiments, decision-makers of technology-based firms (i.e. CEOs) are presented carefully designed hypothetical science-park locations and asked to indicate which location they would prefer if they would relocate. In the experimental design used, each hypothetical location consists of seven attributes each with three levels. The choice data allows for estimating the preference values for the different levels of each attribute, while taking into account the respondent’s current situation, using a discrete choice model as framework (a latent class model). This research provides insights on which science park attributes are desirable for technology-based firms and how much firms are willing-to-pay for particular attributes. Furthermore, differences in preferences between distinct target groups among technology-based firms are analyzed. For practice, the insights allow management of science parks to better adapt services and location characteristics to demands of the target groups of interest.

Towards a segmentation of science parks: A typology study on science parks in Europe

This article examines how metaphors act as a semiotic resource for managing conflicting institutional logics. Due to their polysemic nature, metaphors help to bridge contending logics and facilitate their long-term co-existence without a need for a battle over dominance. Hence, metaphors provide a similar tool for reconciling competing logics as images and polysemic targets have been shown to offer in earlier studies. The study looks at the workings of metaphors by analysing discourse concerning science and technology parks (STPs) from the UK and Finland. The dataset includes interviews with park managers and representatives of client companies, parliamentary debates and self-presentations by the parks. The article shows how the six key metaphors used to describe STPs (the garden, the incubator, the accelerator, the conduit, the village, and the landlord) are utilized by various actor groups to reconcile the two conflicting institutional logics prevalent in the STPs: instrumental rationalism and romanticism.

This paper shows that the effect of location in science and technology parks is not homogeneous for all firms. The proposed model contemplates a non-linear relationship between belonging to a science and technology park and innovation performance, considering the firm’s absorptive capacity as a moderating variable. A panel dataset of firms located both in and off a park is created, and three main effects are identified. Pre-catching up firms have a low absorptive capacity, and their location in a science and technology park does not improve their innovation performance. Catching up firms have a medium absorptive capacity and constitute the group that can be observed to benefit more by their presence in a science and technology park. Additionally, pre-frontier sharing firms has a high absorptive capacity; however, knowledge duplicity reduces the impact of science and technology parks on their innovation performance. Findings arise practical implications for governments (how to assign public resources to parks?), managers of parks (how to select to the firms of a park?) and managers who need to decide about the convenience of locating their companies on a park (when my company is interested in locating in a park?).

This paper aims to propose a multidimensional model for monitoring and evaluating (ME) the performance of similar groups of Science and Technology Parks (STPs), instead of having a generic ME system. The development of this model considered STPs’ business models and value propositions, their objectives and goals, development stage, stakeholder’s commitment, and respective legal and governance structures. Firstly, we put into perspective the complexity and multidimensionality of measuring and evaluating performance of STPs. In sequence, we review the literature associated with STPs’ performance assessment, covering the period of 1996-2016 and focusing on the dimensions/variables and methods that have been considered in previous works. Then, as a core part of this paper, we present the measurement framework itself describing the building blocks it is composed. Aiming to demonstrate the applicability of this model in the context of different science and technology parks in Brazil, an empirical study, focusing on the planning phase of the model, was carried out during 2016 with 26 participants of the 1st Course for Managers of Parks and Environments of Innovation, offered by the Brazilian Association of Science Parks and Business Incubators (Anprotec). The main contributions of the research are a flexible model for measuring and evaluating the performance of technological parks and sets of indicators and metrics associated with different types of parks.

Technology Parks versus Science Parks: Does the university make the difference?

The science park phenomenon started half a century ago. Comprehensive studies about science park management emerged two decades later. The present study examines the experience of science park management reflected by the literature, which happens to focus on earlier parks in North America and Europe. This paper extracts their critical factors and synthesises them into three groups, that concern park location, park preparation, and park management team. Findings reflect that park location factors caught the earliest attention. Intangible aspects of park management such as marketing, services and the quality of park management team were emphasised in the third decade of science park development. This implies that good park administration is not less important for a science park than a strategic location, but it was realised later; or it becomes a critical factor after a good location has been selected. In either case, good park administration should be decisive for park success.

Purpose Science parks are business clusters situated in a particular geographical location, originally conceptualized by local universities, local government and businesses. In recent times, science park stakeholders and tenants are starting to pursue social value and even how to manage. This study aims to clarify the understanding of social value in an innovation ecosystem. Design/methodology/approach This study combines existing literature studies and concepts, observations in a real-life innovation ecosystem – a Bioscience Park – and interviews of key personnel managing the science park. Findings Science Park Social Value (SPSV) is a value resulting from interaction among groups and not just the pursuit of a single firm-level goal. SPSV emanates from the firms within the science park in reaction to the demands of the actors or entities within and outside the innovation ecosystem of the science park: internal operations, external stakeholders and infexternal or broader societal impact. In addition to this, the author has conceptualized a framework for social value of an innovation ecosystem, which will require further research. Research limitations/implications This paper creates a link between concepts about social value, innovation ecosystem (e.g. science park) and stakeholder theory. Practical implications SPSV will be useful for science park orchestrators or managers to manage expectations of social and non-social actors. Social implications Social value of a science park will bring a new light on the stigma that science parks are only money-making ventures and are not in touch with social issues. Originality value This study theorized and researched previously unrelated concepts.

This chapter explores the strategic choices facing science parks worldwide, with reference to the Strategigram tool developed by the President of the Advisory Council of the International Association of Science Parks and Areas of Innovation (IASP), Luis Sanz. The tool establishes seven key strategic axes (Location and environment, Position in the knowledge/technology stream, Target firms, Degree of specialisation, Target markets, Networking, and the Governance/Management model), using a number of complex indicators and objective data to determine the position of a science and technology park (STP) on each axis. This paper examines each axis and the implications for science park managers of the position their science and technology occupies, as well as considering the evolution of the STP concept in the knowledge economy, and the emergence of the new areas of innovation.

Any effective and sustainable changes in an organization refers to three areas related with each other and play the best way in the humans, structure and technology fields. The Knowledge management by emphasizing the three areas with the axis of man and preparing him as a knowledge worker tries to achieve organizational goals. Purpose: The current study aims to investigate the existing relationship between knowledge management infrastructures, knowledge management process capabilities, creative organizational learning, and organizational performance. Originality/value: Previous researches did not appraise the effect of knowledge management and its capabilities on organizational performance, and the specific influence of creative organizational learning was disregarded. The present study demonstrates the mechanism of knowledge management effect on organizational performance and describes the comprehensive dimensions of knowledge management performance. Methodology : Statistical population includes executives of Knowledge based companies in Science and Technology Parks of Iran. The 336 questionnaire was distributed to the census, 248questionnaireswerecompletedcorrectly. The research data were analyzed by PLS software. The unit of analysis is a company that has adopted a KMS. Target population of the research consisted of 700 Top Managers of Knowledge based companies in Science and Technology Parks of Iran (N=700). Random sampling method applied in this study and 248Top Managers were considered as the statistical sample based on Morgan Table. One standard 5-point Likert questionnaire adopted and distributed between Top managers in the park. 252 questionnaires were returned among which 248 ones were statistically investigated. The structural relations among variables were tested using the partial least squares (PLS) method. Findings : This study shows that the KM processes can mediate between creative organizational learning and factors in the KM infrastructure. The results of the study demonstrate that knowledge management process capabilities has the most crucial role in creative organizational learning. The results indicate that there is a significant influence of the infrastructure capabilities (Collaboration, Trust, Learning Culture, Decentralization, Top Management, Promotion, IT support) on the process capabilities, also the impacts of knowledge management process capabilities on creative organizational learning and the impacts of creative organizational learning on organizational performance was confirmed.

Science parks as area developments have existed for decades and have captivated the attention of academics and policy-makers for their supposedly positive impact on resident organisations and regions. To date there is mixed empirical evidence to indicate the performance enhancing effects of specific science park features on research & development, economic output or improved collaboration between users. Furthermore, limited attention is given to the demands and perceptions of science park users. This study focuses on one of the main features of science parks, namely the shared facilities and services on-site and how users perceive the benefits of these facilities. An online survey is distributed to 594 resident organisations on eight science parks in the Netherlands to which 112 participated. Within the questionnaire respondents are inquired on organisational characteristics in order to distinguish tenant types through clustering on aspects, such as RD ‘non-R&D organisations', ‘R&D start-ups', and ‘R&D small-medium enterprises' with each cluster mentioning different benefits that they value . In general, knowledge sharing and on-site collaboration are most frequently mentioned as important science park benefits and are mostly associated to training programs and information access. Both ‘R&D start-ups' and ‘non-R&D organisations' value the opportunity to be near customers for different reasons, while ‘R&D small medium entrepreneurs' perceive social events as a means to be close to the university or other higher educational institutions. The associations between various types of shared facilities and benefits that residents seek provide insights for practitioners in terms of the design and management of science parks and add to the body of knowledge of science park literature.