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.