Authors: Jari Ruokolainen
Various studies propose that companies in science parks seldom cooperate, although the commercial cooperation among companies has been emphasized being one of the main outcomes. Several studies propose that small communities enhance the cooperation between the companies. Inside the communities, the companies can commercially cooperate to develop their suppliers to bring sustainable benefits to their community. Science parks form small communities and, therefore, it was interesting to gain further knowledge why the science parks did not generate business networks between the tenants as companies in small communities are reported to generate. In this multiple case study, I focused on more details why the cooperation did not occur and why the joint development efforts are missed. I interviewed 15 companies in a science park next to Bangkok in Thailand. The companies were selected based on the discussions between the companies, science park organization, and this researcher. The companies’ backgrounds varied from being an affiliation of a multinational company located abroad or in Thailand to being located in the science park as a Thai start-up. From those 15 companies, three companies explained having cooperation with other companies in that science park. I found out several categories, why the cooperation did not take place. As many of the companies emphasized the reason being not business related, I further investigated among the companies, how they preferred to be business related. One of the recommendations of this study is to select companies in science parks as follows: (1) have mutual interests being part of the same supply chain, (2) focusing on mutual technologies, (3) developing and employing the same platforms in their product development, or (4) sharing common vision and long-term intent. If the companies in a science park do not have some of these qualities, the science park organization should study how to gain them.
Journal: n.a. (n.a. – n.a.)
Web Address: n.a.
Publish Year: 2016
Conference: Poznan, Poland (2016)