Computer modelling and identification of factors important for the success of business clusters

Abstract

Business clusters are often intended to provide the environment needed to stimulate the financial growth of corporate inhabitants. However, many fails, prompting scholars to strive to identify the relevant success factors. In this paper, we identify factors promoting the growth of high-technology firms using a longitudinal dataset for both on-and off-cluster firms in Mjärdevi Science Park (MSP) at Linköping, Sweden. A panel data approach was used to investigate factors influencing the growth of on-cluster firms using off-cluster firms as a control group. Size and age influence turnover, as does the ability to innovate, but whereas size and age have a quadratic (non-linear) impact on financial growth, innovation capabilities have a positive linear impact. Employment is mainly correlated to age, previous years' innovation and shareholder investment. Innovation output, (the ratio of patents asset value to turnover) is correlated to networking measured as social expenditure, which in turn exhibits a positive influence on innovation capabilities.

Analyses of small and medium-sized science and technology parks show that longer-term growth may depend upon attracting larger partners

“…on average offcluster. Indeed, it is possible that off-cluster firms may be suppliers to on-cluster firms or otherwise be part of a supply chain for some on-cluster firms, as postulated for the Mjärdevi Science Park in the Linköping municipality (Al-kfairy et al, 2019).…”

Developing Young Science and Technology Parks: Recent Findings from Industrial Nations Using the Data-Driven Approach

“…Even with 400 on-cluster firms, Figure 2A shows around 20,000 MUs of benefit or loss. At this stage, the innovation output for on-STP firms is not related to R&D expenditure, but rather to networking, as expressed by social expenditure [39,40]. The work of [40] showed surprisingly that innovation in on-STP firms depended on spending over 15% of their turnover on organising social events, networking, partnership, etc., with other on-STP firms, and that this was found during all stages of STP growth.…”

“…The innovation output of off-cluster firms is lightly related to R&D expenditure, but not to networking (social) expenditure [34]. A summary is given in Table 1: To form an overview of the three stages, data were recovered from [37,40] and recalculated, and the results are presented in Table 2. As Table 2 shows, the mature and well-established STP accounts for a large percentage of regional employment, although at this stage the growth in the number of on-STP employees is flat, presumably due to 'churn', i.e., equal numbers 'graduating' and leaving the STP, as new arrivals.…”

Evaluating the effect of organizational architecture in developing science and technology parks under differing innovation environments

“…Organizational architectures are conduits for networks; in STPs participation in networking activities has been shown to promote knowledge sharing among inhabitants (Koçak and Can, 2014) and indeed Al-kfairy et al (2019b) found that networking (measured as social expenditure) was highly correlated with good performance in a mature STP. Models provided by Al-kfairy et al (2019a) showed that in the initial stages of a nascent STP, the "star" architecture is most efficient, where all firms inhabiting the STP have one connection to the CI and no other connections, because this architecture is very economical on transaction costs.…”