A value-created system of science (technology) park by using DEMATEL
Introduction
The flourishing progress of both economic liberalization and information technologies have contributed to the trend of enterprise globalization. The enterprise faces competition against not only domestic companies, but also international companies. In order to transcend other competitors, the enterprise has to strengthen its competitive advantage by manipulating global brains and resources. The appearance is that many famous international enterprises around the world had moved their production bases into developing countries. Through resource re-allocation actions, these international enterprises can intensify their resources on R&D and marketing activities of products or service, but they still have to tackle two difficult issues: (1) to meet customers’ needs, the best solution for enterprises is to produce goods fitting customers’ needs/demands and to set up sales units near customers; (2) to maintain key competitive competency, these enterprises look for outsourcing of standard production procedures and services in order to reduce operating costs (Iammarino and McCann, 2006, McCann and Arita, 2006, McCann et al., 2002, Ng and Tuan, 2003). These enterprises will not meet customer’s needs/demands unless they adjust and organize their production, R&D and marketing bases opportunely. The best way to accomplish this is to consider the optimal allocation of global markets and resources, and to look for suitable production places, R&D and marketing bases around the world. Thus, enterprises can manipulate global brains and resources to reduce their production costs, raise the operating performance and enhance enterprises’ competitive competency. A comprehensive literature review has revealed that studies industrial clusters formed regarding the development process of industrial parks, export processing zones, science parks and technology parks, has its’ contributions and backgrounds. One sentence is not enough to describe how every industrial cluster has been formed; however, we can say that contributions of parks (or various industrial clusters) change with time (Durão et al., 2005, Guerrieri and Pietrobelli, 2004).
Porter, scholar of Harvard University, discovered studies that traditional industrial clusters are based on comparative economic interests or advantages, natural resources and cheap labor costs were the contributions to form industrial clusters. However, instead of natural resources and cheap labor costs, today, continuous innovative actions inside industrial clusters become the main contribution. Therefore, the contributions of industrial clusters are changed from natural resources and cheap labor costs to the innovation ability of clusters. This is why we want to propose the value-created system of science (technology) parks (Porter, 1998, Porter, 2000). The good industrial clusters or science (technology) parks can grow and develop continuously only basing on the value-created system. If the functions of the value-created systems of science (technology) parks are reduced or lost, the science (technology) parks will face the trouble of firms’ moving-out.
In these years, some researches which illustrate the development of industry cluster between Taiwan and China (Chen and Huang, 2004, Chen et al., 2006, Hu et al., 2005, Ku et al., 2005, Lai and Shyu, 2005, Lee and Yang, 2000, Tan, 2006). These researches illustrate the innovation and development model (Chen et al., 2006, Hu et al., 2005, Ku et al., 2005, Lai and Shyu, 2005, Tan, 2006), and the choice behavior of location (Chen & Huang, 2004) across the Taiwan Strait. So in this research, we try to understand the relationship of value-created system of science (technology) park, and divided the value-created system into four aspects (i.e., human resource (HR), technological resource (TR), investment environment (IE), and market development (ME). Eventually, this paper will generalize the whole value-created system of science (technology) from four major value-created functions and propose the overall analysis. Lin, Tung, and Huang (2006) adopted the DEMATEL method as an analysis technique. The DEMATEL method is an analytic technique of relationship structure, it can find the critical aspect/criteria of the complex structure system. Tzeng et al. (2007) illustrated that DEMATEL method can construct the evaluation dimensions and find out the key driving criteria of various science (technology) parks. The key driving criteria could be sieved out for further improvement. The conclusion could provide some development strategies and operation models for the authorities of science (technology) parks to advance the parks’ value. The manufacture-oriented Hsinchu science park and the R&D, marketing-oriented Neihu technology park is applied to empirical implementation.
This paper is organized as follows: In Section 2, the development process of science (technology) parks, and four aspects/dimensions (i.e., human resource (HR), technological resource (TR), investment environment (IE) and market development (ME) are introduced. In Section 3, the theory of DEMATEL technique is proposed and a simple case is applied to demonstrate the analysis process. In Section 4, empirical studies of two Taiwan science (technology) parks are illustrated to be compared and analyzed. In Section 5, the conclusions and remarks for the two parks are proposed to apply to their future development plans.
Section snippets
Industry clusters and value-created systems on science (technology) parks
Porter (1998) discovered that industry clusters could raise the competitive advantage for enterprises resulting from clusters of productivity, clusters of innovation, and clusters of new business formation. In the clusters of productivity concept, this research extracted five criteria (as shown in Table 1) which could contribute industry clusters to increase productivity. In the clusters of innovation concept, Porter considered that clusters could help enterprises understand customers’ needs
Building the value-created system of science (technology) park
This section divides into two Subsections. In Section 3.1, the degree of satisfaction and weights to the science park are analyzed. In Section 3.2, the DEMATEL technique is proposed and introduced. A simple example is illustrated to demonstrate the proposed techniques.
Empirical case of value-created system for science (technology) park
In this Section, two empirical cases of real clustered parks will be proposed to analyze the value-created system of different industrial clusters. The study is divided into four subsections. Section 4.1 deals with the history of development and progress of two science parks. Section 4.2 describes results of the questionnaires and the analysis of the degree of satisfaction and importance regarding the two empirical cases. Section 4.3 discusses the comparative analysis of the science
Conclusions
In this paper, we would like to build the value-created system of science (technology) park. In the early development progress of HSP, HR is supported by technology transferring abroad and foreign cultivation. Later, NCTU, NTHU and ITRI played a role in brain cultivation and training. From the positive point of view, HSP provides a platform for spin-offs, spin-ins or product commercialization initiated by academia or ITRI. Relatively, academa and R&D institutes created well informed people.
References (29)
- et al.
Assessing technology incubator programs in the science park: The good, the bad and the ugly
Technovation
(2005) - et al.
A multiple criteria evaluation of high-tech industries for the science-based industrial park in Taiwan
Information and Management
(2004) - et al.
Evaluating the development of high-tech industries: Taiwan’s science park
Technological Forecasting and Social Change
(2006) - et al.
Virtual and real-estate science and technology parks: A case study of Taguspark
Technovation
(2005) Science parks in Japan and their value-added contributions to new technology-based firms
International Journal of Industrial Organization
(2006)- et al.
The determinants of national innovative capacity
Research Policy
(2002) - et al.
Industrial districts’ evolution and technological regimes: Italy and Taiwan
Technovation
(2004) - et al.
Designing methods of human interface for supervisory control systems
Control Engineering Practice
(1999) - et al.
Technology-based regional development strategies and the emergence of technological communities: A case study of HSIP, Taiwan
Technovation
(2005) - et al.
Reconfiguring the innovation policy portfolios for Taiwan’s SIP Mall industry
Technovation
(2007)
The structure and evolution of industrial clusters: Transactions, technology and knowledge spillovers
Research Policy
The high-tech milieu and innovation-oriented development
Technovation
A comparison of innovation capacity at science parks across the Taiwan Strait: The case of Zhangjiang high-tech park and Hsinchu Science-based industrial park
Technovation
The cradle of Taiwan high technology industry development—Hsinchu Science park (HSP)
Technovation
Cited by (229)
Market growth strategies for sustainable smart farm: A correlation and causal relationship approach
2023, Developments in the Built EnvironmentSelection of virtual team members for smart port development projects through the application of the direct and indirect uncertain TOPSIS method
2023, Expert Systems with ApplicationsGlobal Leadership Dynamics: Refining Executive Selection in Multinational Corporations
2024, Journal of the Knowledge EconomyBridging the valley of death: examining university science parks' influence on revenue generation
2024, International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and ResearchAnalysis on risk factors related delay in PCPs
2023, Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management