TY - JOUR
T1 - Exploring science park location choice
T2 - A stated choice experiment among Dutch technology-based firms
AU - Ng, Wei Keat Benny
AU - Appel-Meulenbroek, Rianne
AU - Cloodt, Myriam
AU - Arentze, Theo
N1 - Funding Information: This research is partially funded by industry partners; Brink Groep , Inbo , Ramphastos Investments and SADC.
PY - 2022/9
Y1 - 2022/9
N2 - Technology development is increasingly important for creating efficient and sustainable economies. Policy-makers have encouraged the co-location of technology-based firms that could lead to innovation benefits. One of the innovation policies are science parks, area developments where technology-based firms, universities and research institutes co-locate. Science parks enable firms to focus on their core activities. However, the trade-off that technology-based firms make regarding the science park location choice and the impact of organisational characteristics on these trade-offs is unknown. To collect tenant preference data, an exploratory survey with a stated choice experiment is distributed among technology-based firms both on and off science parks in the Netherlands. This approach allows for the estimation of the utilities that firms assign to design-related attributes and their willingness to pay for these attributes. Results show that science park tenants prefer locations with universities within the same area, shared business support and leisure facilities and near station locations relatively more than off-park counterparts do. Tenant firms are most eager to pay for the proximity of the university followed by provided R&D facilities, accessibility of the location, provided shared facilities, technological focus of the area and lastly events held in the area.
AB - Technology development is increasingly important for creating efficient and sustainable economies. Policy-makers have encouraged the co-location of technology-based firms that could lead to innovation benefits. One of the innovation policies are science parks, area developments where technology-based firms, universities and research institutes co-locate. Science parks enable firms to focus on their core activities. However, the trade-off that technology-based firms make regarding the science park location choice and the impact of organisational characteristics on these trade-offs is unknown. To collect tenant preference data, an exploratory survey with a stated choice experiment is distributed among technology-based firms both on and off science parks in the Netherlands. This approach allows for the estimation of the utilities that firms assign to design-related attributes and their willingness to pay for these attributes. Results show that science park tenants prefer locations with universities within the same area, shared business support and leisure facilities and near station locations relatively more than off-park counterparts do. Tenant firms are most eager to pay for the proximity of the university followed by provided R&D facilities, accessibility of the location, provided shared facilities, technological focus of the area and lastly events held in the area.
KW - Preference
KW - Science park
KW - Stated choice experiment
KW - Technology-based firm
KW - Trade-off
U2 - 10.1016/j.techfore.2022.121796
DO - 10.1016/j.techfore.2022.121796
M3 - Article
SN - 0040-1625
VL - 182
JO - Technological Forecasting and Social Change
JF - Technological Forecasting and Social Change
M1 - 121796
ER -