Sustainability performance in science and technology parks: how can firms benefit most?

Abstract

PurposeAchieving good sustainability performance requires balancing higher economic profits with better environmental and social performance. Knowledge plays a key role in improving corporate sustainability performance, but this knowledge is becoming increasingly complex, specific and dispersed among many scientific, technological and business actors. Science and technology parks (STPs) are infrastructures designed to host varying types of organizations that can bring together new, disruptive knowledge. Our purpose is to unveil how these spaces can be drivers of sustainability performance for companies.Design/methodology/approachWe test our hypotheses on a longitudinal database of Spanish companies over the period 2009–2016 using structural equation models (SEMs).FindingsThis research confirms that a firm’s location in an STP helps improve its sustainability performance, provided that conditions are optimal in the STP. These optimal conditions are based on an abundance of knowledge spillovers available to the firm and the firm’s ability to harness them, especially those of a more disruptive nature, through absorptive capacity.Originality/valueResults of this study yield implications for academia in the form of future lines of research and practical implications for policymakers and managers of both STPs and the organizations that host them.