IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jtecht/v37y2012i5p715-731.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Firm innovation in policy-driven parks and spontaneous clusters: the smaller firm the better?

Author

Listed:
  • Kuo-Feng Huang
  • Chwo-Ming Yu
  • Dah-Hsian Seetoo

Abstract

Mixed evidence has been found regarding how locating in a cluster or a park affects firms’ performance. This paper investigates how locating in different types of clusters and parks interacted by firm size or in-house R&D capability affects a firm’s innovation. Empirically testing the research hypotheses by the data of 165 Taiwan’s manufacturing firms in the information and communication technology sector and taking policy-driven parks (e.g., science parks and industrial parks) and spontaneously clusters as examples, we find that in emerging economies, firms with inferior in-house R&D capability gain more innovation benefits by locating in a science park or a spontaneous cluster while smaller firms gain more innovation benefits by locating in an industry park or a spontaneous cluster. Moreover, our findings also suggest that locating in a science park, smaller firms benefit more than larger firms in terms of innovation performance whereas larger firms benefit more than smaller firms in terms of market performance. The findings suggest that in emerging economies, compared to larger firms, smaller firms are less influenced by negative spillover effect when locating in clusters or parks. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012

Suggested Citation

  • Kuo-Feng Huang & Chwo-Ming Yu & Dah-Hsian Seetoo, 2012. "Firm innovation in policy-driven parks and spontaneous clusters: the smaller firm the better?," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 37(5), pages 715-731, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jtecht:v:37:y:2012:i:5:p:715-731
    DOI: 10.1007/s10961-012-9248-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10961-012-9248-9
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10961-012-9248-9?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tan, Justin, 2006. "Growth of industry clusters and innovation: Lessons from Beijing Zhongguancun Science Park," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 21(6), pages 827-850, November.
    2. Jeff S. Armstrong & Michael R. Darby & Lynne G. Zucker, 2003. "Commercializing knowledge: university science, knowledge capture and firm performance in biotechnology," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, issue Sep, pages 149-170.
    3. Wilbur Chung & Arturs Kalnins, 2001. "Agglomeration effects and performance: a test of the Texas lodging industry," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(10), pages 969-988, October.
    4. Paul Almeida & Anupama Phene, 2004. "Subsidiaries and knowledge creation: the influence of the MNC and host country on innovation," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(8‐9), pages 847-864, August.
    5. Todd R. Zenger, 1994. "Explaining Organizational Diseconomies of Scale in R&D: Agency Problems and the Allocation of Engineering Talent, Ideas, and Effort by Firm Size," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 40(6), pages 708-729, June.
    6. Hagedoorn, John & Cloodt, Myriam, 2003. "Measuring innovative performance: is there an advantage in using multiple indicators?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(8), pages 1365-1379, September.
    7. Gambardella, Alfonso, 1992. "Competitive advantages from in-house scientific research: The US pharmaceutical industry in the 1980s," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 21(5), pages 391-407, October.
    8. Albert Link & John Scott, 2006. "U.S. University Research Parks," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 25(1), pages 43-55, April.
    9. Alfred R Nucci & Timothy Bates, 1990. "An Analysis of Small Business Size and Rate of Discontinuance," Working Papers 90-2, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    10. Humphrey, John & Schmitz, Hubert, 1996. "The Triple C approach to local industrial policy," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 24(12), pages 1859-1877, December.
    11. Wesley M. Cohen & Richard R. Nelson & John P. Walsh, 2003. "Links and Impacts: The Influence of Public Research on Industrial R&D," Chapters, in: Aldo Geuna & Ammon J. Salter & W. Edward Steinmueller (ed.), Science and Innovation, chapter 4, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    12. Kumiko Miyazaki, 1995. "Building Competences in the Firm," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-349-23873-6, March.
    13. Siegel, Donald S & Westhead, Paul & Wright, Mike, 2003. "Science Parks and the Performance of New Technology-Based Firms: A Review of Recent U.K. Evidence and an Agenda for Future Research," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 177-184, March.
    14. Audretsch, David B, 1998. "Agglomeration and the Location of Innovative Activity," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 14(2), pages 18-29, Summer.
    15. Zoltan J. Acs & Luc Anselin & Attila Varga, 2008. "Patents and Innovation Counts as Measures of Regional Production of New Knowledge," Chapters, in: Entrepreneurship, Growth and Public Policy, chapter 11, pages 135-151, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Cooke, Philip, 2002. "Regional Innovation Systems: General Findings and Some New Evidence from Biotechnology Clusters," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 133-145, January.
    17. Christoph Alsleben, 2005. "The Downside of Knowledge Spillovers: An Explanation for the Dispersion of High-tech Industries," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 84(3), pages 217-248, May.
    18. Lockett, Andy & Wright, Mike & Franklin, Stephen, 2003. "Technology Transfer and Universities' Spin-Out Strategies," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 185-200, March.
    19. Wesley M. Cohen & Richard C. Levin & David C. Mowery, 1987. "Firm Size and R&D Intensity: A Re-Examination," NBER Working Papers 2205, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Zahra, Shaker A., 1996. "Technology strategy and new venture performance: A study of corporate-sponsored and independent biotechnology ventures," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 289-321, July.
    21. Rabellotti, Roberta, 1995. "Is there an "industrial district model"? Footwear districts in Italy and Mexico compared," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 29-41, January.
    22. Link, Albert N. & Scott, John T., 2003. "U.S. science parks: the diffusion of an innovation and its effects on the academic missions of universities," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 21(9), pages 1323-1356, November.
    23. J. Myles Shaver & Fredrick Flyer, 2000. "Agglomeration economies, firm heterogeneity, and foreign direct investment in the United States," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(12), pages 1175-1193, December.
    24. Richard Ferguson & Christer Olofsson, 2004. "Science Parks and the Development of NTBFs-- Location, Survival and Growth," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 29(1), pages 5-17, January.
    25. Thomas Keil & Markku Maula & Henri Schildt & Shaker A. Zahra, 2008. "The effect of governance modes and relatedness of external business development activities on innovative performance," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(8), pages 895-907, August.
    26. Audretsch, David B & Feldman, Maryann P, 1996. "R&D Spillovers and the Geography of Innovation and Production," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(3), pages 630-640, June.
    27. Hamparsum Bozdogan, 1987. "Model selection and Akaike's Information Criterion (AIC): The general theory and its analytical extensions," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 52(3), pages 345-370, September.
    28. Josep Maria Arauzo Carod & Miguel C. ManjÛn AntolÌn, 2004. "Firm Size and Geographical Aggregation: An Empirical Appraisal in Industrial Location," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 22(3_4), pages 299-312, April.
    29. Baptista, Rui & Swann, Peter, 1998. "Do firms in clusters innovate more?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 525-540, September.
    30. Nola Hewitt-Dundas, 2006. "Resource and Capability Constraints to Innovation in Small and Large Plants," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 26(3), pages 257-277, April.
    31. Mariagrazia Squicciarini, 2008. "Science Parks’ tenants versus out-of-Park firms: who innovates more? A duration model," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 33(1), pages 45-71, February.
    32. Cohen, Wesley M & Levin, Richard C & Mowery, David C, 1987. "Firm Size and R&D Intensity: A Re-examination," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(4), pages 543-565, June.
    33. Evangelia Sofouli & Nicholas Vonortas, 2007. "S&T Parks and business incubators in middle-sized countries: the case of greece," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 32(5), pages 525-544, October.
    34. Nooteboom, Bart, 1999. "Innovation, Learning and Industrial Organisation," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 23(2), pages 127-150, March.
    35. Albert N. Link & John T. Scott, 2007. "The economics of university research parks," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 23(4), pages 661-674, Winter.
    36. Link, Albert N & Link, Kevin R, 2003. "On the Growth of U.S. Science Parks," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 81-85, January.
    37. Zoltan Acs & David Audretsch, 1990. "Innovation and Small Firms," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262011131, April.
    38. Kuo-Feng Huang & Chwo-Ming Yu, 2011. "The effect of competitive and non-competitive R&D collaboration on firm innovation," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 36(4), pages 383-403, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Link, Albert N. & Scott, John T., 2011. "Research, Science, and Technology Parks: Vehicles for Technology Transfer," UNCG Economics Working Papers 11-22, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Department of Economics.
    2. Laura Lecluyse & Mirjam Knockaert & André Spithoven, 2019. "The contribution of science parks: a literature review and future research agenda," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 44(2), pages 559-595, April.
    3. Isabel Díez-Vial & Marta Fernández-Olmos, 2015. "Knowledge spillovers in science and technology parks: how can firms benefit most?," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 40(1), pages 70-84, February.
    4. Fernando Ubeda & Marta Ortiz-de-Urbina-Criado & Eva-María Mora-Valentín, 2019. "Do firms located in science and technology parks enhance innovation performance? The effect of absorptive capacity," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 44(1), pages 21-48, February.
    5. Mariagrazia Squicciarini, 2009. "Science parks: seedbeds of innovation? A duration analysis of firms’ patenting activity," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 32(2), pages 169-190, February.
    6. Kuo-Feng Huang & Chwo-Ming Yu, 2011. "The effect of competitive and non-competitive R&D collaboration on firm innovation," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 36(4), pages 383-403, August.
    7. Marina van Geenhuizen & Danny P. Soetanto & Victor Scholten, 2012. "Science Parks: Changing Roles and Changing Approaches in their Evaluation," Chapters, in: Marina van Geenhuizen & Peter Nijkamp (ed.), Creative Knowledge Cities, chapter 6, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. Alberto Albahari & Andrés Barge-Gil & Salvador Pérez-Canto & Paolo Landoni, 2023. "The effect of science and technology parks on tenant firms: a literature review," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 48(4), pages 1489-1531, August.
    9. Elisa Salvador, 2011. "Are science parks and incubators good “brand names” for spin-offs? The case study of Turin," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 36(2), pages 203-232, April.
    10. Ángela Vásquez-Urriago & Andrés Barge-Gil & Aurelia Rico & Evita Paraskevopoulou, 2014. "The impact of science and technology parks on firms’ product innovation: empirical evidence from Spain," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 24(4), pages 835-873, September.
    11. Mariagrazia Squicciarini, 2008. "Science Parks’ tenants versus out-of-Park firms: who innovates more? A duration model," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 33(1), pages 45-71, February.
    12. Marisa Ramírez-Alesón & Marta Fernández-Olmos, 2018. "Unravelling the effects of Science Parks on the innovation performance of NTBFs," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 43(2), pages 482-505, April.
    13. T. Theeranattapong & D. Pickernell & C. Simms, 2021. "Systematic literature review paper: the regional innovation system-university-science park nexus," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 46(6), pages 2017-2050, December.
    14. Yonghua Zou & Wanxia Zhao, 2014. "Anatomy of Tsinghua University Science Park in China: institutional evolution and assessment," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 39(5), pages 663-674, October.
    15. Eva-María Mora-Valentín & Marta Ortiz-de-Urbina-Criado & Juan-José Nájera-Sánchez, 2018. "Mapping the conceptual structure of science and technology parks," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 43(5), pages 1410-1435, October.
    16. Francesco Lamperti & Roberto Mavilia & Simona Castellini, 2017. "The role of Science Parks: a puzzle of growth, innovation and R&D investments," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 42(1), pages 158-183, February.
    17. David Minguillo & Mike Thelwall, 2015. "Which are the best innovation support infrastructures for universities? Evidence from R&D output and commercial activities," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 102(1), pages 1057-1081, January.
    18. Alberto Albahari & Magnus Klofsten & Juan Carlos Rubio-Romero, 2019. "Science and Technology Parks: a study of value creation for park tenants," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 44(4), pages 1256-1272, August.
    19. Albahari, Alberto & Pérez-Canto, Salvador & Landoni, Paolo, 2010. "Science and Technology Parks impacts on tenant organisations: a review of literature," MPRA Paper 41914, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Li, Xibao, 2015. "Specialization, institutions and innovation within China's regional innovation systems," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 130-139.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Agglomeration effect; SMEs; In-house R&D; Science-based parks; O32; R1; R12;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O32 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Management of Technological Innovation and R&D
    • R1 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:jtecht:v:37:y:2012:i:5:p:715-731. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.