University-related science parks - 'seedbeds' or 'enclaves' of ...

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0. Felsensteina supportive environment for the development ofinnovation, creativity and entrepreneurship.The above description stresses the seedbed roleof the science park in a behavioural sense.However, another set of expectations of scienceparks relates to their function in a regionaleconomic development sense. Science parks areinvariably associated with more than just a rolein promoting innovation and entrepreneurialism,and a successful science park is viewed as morethan an innovation-generating environment. It isoften - wishfully - ascribed with the propertiesof a growth sector leading the area under questioninto a spiral of propulsive expansion [4, 51. Thefew success stories notwithstanding, the reality israther more mundane. The science park as acatalyst in urban and regional growth is not a welltroddenpath and, despite public policy rhetoric tothe contrary, few examples exist of science parkledlocal economic development [6].The common ground between the behaviouraland spatial conceptions of the seedbed lies in thenotion of the seedbed as creating an environment.This environment, while occupying dimensions ingeometric space, is not exclusively spatial. Itrepresents a ‘milieu’ in both the functional andbehavioural sense, as well as the geographic.Amongst the principal factors of production inscience park development are information andknow-how which are inherently unconstrained byspatial boundaries. The science park as a seedbedfor innovation is more than just a physical concentrationof units of production benefiting from thelinkages and economies of scale and scope thatagglomeration affords. As will be seen below,these advantages are not often realized and theinnovation process does not seem to be contingenton them.There must therefore be a further aspect of theseedbed environment that is related to behaviouralfactors and is also important in understanding therelationship between science park location andinnovation. This relates to the network environmentof the firm that comprises the informaland non-institutionalized flows of information,knowledge and collaboration based on contacts,work experience, education and so on. Thesefactors, while difficult to quantify, add a furtherdimension to the seedbed function of the sciencepark and also transcend its narrow spatial confines.This paper examines the relationship betweeninnovation and science park location and, in sodoing, highlights these different conceptions of theseedbed function. An empirical analysis, based onevidence from science parks in Israel, is presented.While no attempt is made to determine thedirection of causality between level of innovationand location on a science park (does science parklocation make for more innovative firms, or dothe more innovative tend to cluster in scienceparks?), we are interested in unravelling some ofthe relationships between innovation, location andthe behavioural characteristics of science parkcompany entrepreneurs and managers. This willshed light on the seedbed functions of the sciencepark, both behavioural and spatial.More specifically, the paper proceeds in thefollowing manner. The main tenets of the seedbedenvironment, from both a behavioural and a spatialperspective, are highlighted in the next section,and the empirical evidence for science parks asseedbeds is presented. This is followed by ashort description of the context within which theempirical work is set, and a formulation of themain hypotheses. Data limitations and issues ofmethod are then discussed and this leads on tothe empirical findings. On the basis of a surveyof over 160 Israeli high-technology firms and threemajor university-related science parks, some of therelationships between behavioural characteristics,science park location and innovation level areestimated. The significance of these findings withrespect to the role of science parks in the innovationprocess, and their policy implications, are presentedin the concluding section.2. The seedbed environmentIn defining the conditions that give rise to theseedbed environment, a distinction needs to bedrawn between the spatial and the behavioural94 Technovation Vol. 14 No. 2
Science parks - seedbeds or enclaves of innovation?approaches. From a spatial perspective, theexogenous factors nurturing and promoting innovationat a given location are integral componentsof the seedbed environment. Much effort has beenexpended in identifying those areas that have‘good’ incubator conditions based on city size,level of urbanization, institutional structures andcommunity characteristics [7, 81. While the evidenceon the impact of these influences oninnovation is mixed, it does seem to suggest thaturban areas are not particularly important marketsfor the development of innovative activity. In fact,a study of the incubator function of the Raandstadcities in Holland has shown these locations to beunder-represented in terms of innovative activity[9]. The spatial seedbed hypothesis of an indigenousregional impact supporting innovation could thereforenot be supported and the study suggestslooking at intra-firm characteristics for furtherexplanation.While this spatial approach relates to the determinantsof innovative activity, other approacheshave looked, from this same perspective, at thedeterminants of the incidence of industrial andscience parks. The presence of industrial parks ingeneral has been related to city (or community)size and age, population densities and populationgrowth rates [lo]. Looking more specifically atscience parks, Luger and Goldstein [ll] havedemonstrated the importance of size of metropolitanarea, linkage to a local university and level ofservice offered, in explaining science park successas measured by employment generation. Conversely,parks located in small areas and withoutuniversity connections are the most likely to fail.This identification of seedbed characteristics hasnot been without its critics. As an approach tounderstanding location tendencies it has beentermed ‘analytically sterile’ [12 (p. 219)] and it isclaimed that innovative places cannot be ‘read-offon the basis of the ‘right’ exogenously determinedcharacteristics. Furthermore, such an approach, itis argued, misses the subtle role played by industrialorganizations and overlooks the social divisions oflabour that have allowed the seedbed to emerge.In essence, a behavioural component of seedbedformation is missing. This would include the roleof exogenous organizations or institutions such asuniversities, the role of other firms in promotingor discouraging spin-offs, previous work and educationalbackground of entrepreneurs, and so on.From a behavioural perspective, the seedbedenvironment is composed of a knowledge infrastructure(such as a university or research institute)that creates positive externalities that becomepublic goods. These institutions can also includelocal chambers of commerce, banks, venture capitalcompanies and so on. These are all milieu-creatingorganizations [13] in that, when they occur withina given area, they create an information- andtransaction-intensive complex that not only provideseconomies in scale and scope and cost savingsin transactions but also reduces risk [14].Other firms also have an important role to playin fashioning the behavioural environment. Theyare sources of knowledge and externalities no lessthan the institutions mentioned above. As Acs andAudretsch [15] point out, other firms (competitors,collaborators) are repositories of know-how andwork experience. Some of this is accessed throughformal sources such as contracts and licensingagreements while some is generated through meetings,trade fairs, informal contacts and intermediariessuch as suppliers and consultants. Where allthis occurs in a given environment such as ascience park, the spatial and behavioural factorsinterchange. However, as Birley [16] has pointedout, in a local environment one of the maininformational shortcomings is the lack of kncwledgeas to what information is in fact available.This would seem to suggest, for example, thatfirms choosing to locate on a science park maynot necessarily be exercising this choice becauseof its perceived seedbed function. They often setupwithout a proper screening process of theenvironment, and their location choice may bepart of a ‘social signalling’ process [17]. Theseedbed properties of the environment (access toinformation, networks etc.) are then probably onlyrealized at a later stage. This could also seem tosuggest that initially the innovative capacities of anew firm in an environment such as a science parkTechnovation Vol. 14 No. 2 95
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