A value-created system of science (technology) park by using DEMATEL

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Abstract

Under the impact of globalization effects, enterprises tackle the rapid change of market circumstances and find suitable places for production, R&D and marketing, which contribute to the creation of clusters of various industries. In this study, we differentiate the decisive factors effecting enterprises in choosing the right places for production, R&D and marketing. We also provide proposed development strategies and operation models for the authorities of science (technology) park to advance the parks’ value. This study compares various industrial clusters using the DEMATEL (Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory) technique to establish industrial structures. To do this, four aspects are considered: human resources, technology resources, invest environments and market development. These aspects encompass 28 evaluation criteria to determine the establishment attributes of clusters. Two well-known industrial cluster parks, the Neihu technology park and the Hsinchu science park as example, both in Northern Taiwan, are our case studies for this project. The Neihu technology park is the industrial cluster of R&D and marketing. The Hsinchu science park is the industrial cluster of production and manufacture. The DEMATEL technique is used to determine the relationship between the evaluation criteria and establish their value structures. The key performance criteria could be sieved out and shall be further improved. The conclusions shall propose development strategies and operation models for vendors or the authorities of science (technology) parks to advance the parks’ value.

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.

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