Science parks in Sweden – industrial renewal and development?

Abstract

Science parks provide an important resource network for new technology‐based firms (NTBFs). To ascertain the ‘added value’ of a science park location the innovativeness of independent technology‐based science park firms are compared with the levels recorded by a comparable group of firms not located on a park. The hypotheses are empirically tested on the basis of 263 new technology‐based firms in Sweden located both on and off‐park. The survey endeavoured to cover joint‐stock firms located on the nine target science parks (163 firms). The remainder of the NTBFs were drawn from off‐park locations (100 firms). The findings on science parks performance suggest that the parks milieu appear to have a positive impact on their firms growth as measured in terms of sales and jobs. However, there was no evidence of a direct relationship between science park location and profitability. While this research provided several new insights into science parks in Sweden, numerous questions remain.

The impact of science and technology parks on firms’ product innovation: empirical evidence from Spain

“…e UK: Monck et al (1988); Westhead and Storey (1994); Westhead (1997); Siegel et al (2003aSiegel et al ( , 2003b; USA: Link and Scott (2003, 2006, 2007; Appold (2004);Sweden: Löfsten and Lindelöf (2001, 2002, 2005 The process of innovation has been described as knowledge-fuelled, entailing uncertainty and facilitated by the interactions between knowledgeable agents (Nelson 2000;McKelvey, 1996). The uncertainty is related to the outcome of the innovation process, and induces firms to search locally for competences, for example, via localized networks of innovators (Baptista and Swann, 1998;Freeman, 1991).…”

An Evaluation of the Entrepreneurs’ Perception of Business-Incubation Services in Kenya

“…For instance, Lofsten and Lindelof (Lofsten & Lindelof, 2001) using a longitudinal study compared performance of science park tenants to similar tenants located outside and found a positive impact of business's growth as measured by sales and jobs created. However, the approach itself suffers from methods of identifying comparison groups.…”

Science parks: seedbeds of innovation? A duration analysis of firms’ patenting activity

“…On the one hand, Löfsten and Lindelöf (2001) and Lindelöf and Löfsten (2003) find the Park milieu to have a positive impact on the tenants' growth, in terms of both sales and employment. On the other hand though, Ferguson and Olofson (2004) deem these same differences to be insignificant.…”