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Chapter 7
Progress in Planning Vol. 49, No. 3/4, pp. 215±225, 1998 # 1998 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain 0305-9006/98 $19.00 + 0.00
PII: S0305-9006(98)00010-5
CHAPTER 7
Technology Park: an enterprise model Umberto Bozzo 7.1. THE TECHNOLOGY PARK AS ENTERPRISE-GENERATING ENTERPRISES
Citizens occupation and life quality, environment safety and infrastructure conformity to social and productive needs, are the indicators that generally express the social, economic and cultural level of a given geographical area, which is determined by its ``productivity''. When the enterprises represent the main instrument to reach higher productivity levels, it follows that their task is to be competitive in ever more open markets up to the global scale. The Government's goal, on the other hand, is the commitment to stimulate and support a suitable environment to increase the dynamic competitiveness of the enterprises. This is the main reason for the several initiatives undertaken all over the world for the creation of Technology Parks and similar structures (Science Parks, Technopoles, Enterprise and Innovation Centres, etc.) as instruments able to promote the creation of a successful local social and economic environment. This environment facilitates and speeds up innovation in both public and private existing organizations, it supports the creation and the growth of new entrepreneurial activities and promotes the location of exogenous enterprises. The reality of these initiatives is often represented by a site equipped with nice buildings located in natural surroundings, in which high intensity knowledge enterprises can operate. In other words, the Technology Park is a district in which knowledge-intensive enterprises operate making use, at the right time, of those factors suitable for the innovation of their own products and their own organization and production processes to achieve the best management and development. The most important factors of technology development are mainly made up by research and transfer services, by services of information and technologies diusion, by education and training services, by ®nancial services. 215
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Generally speaking, a ``driving'' organization takes upon itself the responsibility to de®ne the development strategy of the Technology Park and to arrange the above mentioned factors so that innovation can take place. Once these factors are available they can be placed at disposal of enterprises and institutions, outside the immediate geographical area. For example, enterprises and institutions already existing in neighbouring towns and cities and located in their central areas could be interested in supporting their own technological development by making use of the same factors made available to the enterprises located in the Technology Park. If this happens, the Technology Park will not have rigid limits on its territory, but will become a ``virtual'' district (``the technopolitan district'') whose boundaries are evolving since the Technology Park de®ned all the locations to which it can oer the fundamental factors for technological development. In such a district, the activities mentioned above lead to the creation of a suitable atmosphere to promote entrepreneurial, economical and social development and, thus, the creation of new enterprises. In this way the Technology Park can be considered not as a site, but a real enterprise-generating enterprise (Dioguardi, forthcoming) in which suitable structures are located to help the new enterprises in their ``start-up and take-o'' phase. A wide range of growing intensity knowledge services, a variety of technological and civil infrastructures make the Technology Park a long-term and high-risk investment, not only in terms of buildings. They also con®rm the need to act in the entrepreneurial way in all phases that mark this new type of organization from the inception to realisation and management. Warnings about times and risks of Technology Parks and consequent studies of market orientation, feasibility studies, experience exchanges on international scale, training and co-operation activities have been the starting point of dierent European Community SPRINT Programme initiatives (SPRINT, 1993). Starting from some of these initiatives, and the whole experience of Technopolis in Valenzano-Bari, in the south of Italy, the main characteristics of a Technology Park as a nowadays enterprise and some ideas that could guide its evolution in the middle and long-term (Bozzo and Hoche-Mong, 1993) are proposed as follows.
7.2. A TECHNOLOGY PARK ENTERPRISE MODEL
The mission of the Technology Park enterprise is to develop its own ``technopolitan district'' conceived as a whole of enterprises ``clusters''* with an high intensity knowledge: an example of a single cluster is shown by the enterprises which supply *Cluster: ``a number of things growing, fastened or ocurring close together'' (Collins English Dictionary). This quotation is reported to underline three dierent ways to ``group'' which is also eective for the enterprises in the technopolitan district.
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linguistic, electronic publishing, data banks, telemarketing, graphics, advertising, software services, etc. Strategy and goals of the Technology Park enterprise are based on the competitive analysis (Porter, 1990) of the speci®c cluster. The identi®cation and establishment of classes of services supplied by the Technology Park enterprise, therefore, have to develop and better that ``value chain'' able to assure external economies useful to the enterprises belonging to each speci®c cluster that has, or could have, importance for the economy of the territorial area in which the Technology Park is located (Maillat and Lecoq, 1992; Bailly et al., 1992; Varaldo, 1993). The ``driving'' organization of a Technology Park is an enterprise capable of promoting and managing activity programmes ``equipped'' with quali®ed scienti®c and technical knowledge, managerial services and culture, infrastructures, ®nancial and technical services, human resources; such programmes aim at the achievement of the objectives peculiar to most of the Technology Parks. In fact if we give a look at the typical Technology Park dossier, we might read about: . attraction of knowledge intensive companies . support of innovation in existing and operating enterprises and organizations . creation of new knowledge intensive enterprises in the virtual territory of the Technology Park, in which the enterprises locate themselves not only because they ®nd favourable factors, but also because they can make business, which are the strategic goals. The main classes of the activity programmes regard: . innovation development (industrial research, technological transfer, technologies diusion) . specialized services (product and process certi®cation, advanced computing and advanced communication services) . human factor development . development of a local cultural atmosphere favourable to innovation and social economic growth (industrialists, union representatives, public administrators, journalists, employees, students, etc.). The Technology Park enterprise undertakes the installation, the management and development of high technical and scienti®c products and services which could be sold on a national and international market, both for its own competitiveness and economic management goals and to promote relations between local enterprises and the national and foreign ones (EMI, 1993). The Technology Park enterprise strategy is mainly based on the commitment and addressed to develop research activity, to work in advanced technology ®elds, to sell its own specialized and training services to contracted customers, to expand the technological network and the related relationships useful for the social, economical and cultural development inside and outside its own site. Other important elements in the strategy are the choices whether to directly operate in the real estate and ®nancial ®eld: for example, even if the enterprises could
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temporarily use equipped spaces available in the Technology Park, the opportunities to reinvest the buildings in industrial or urban areas are not neglected also through agreements between the Technology Park enterprise and the local authorities competent for the ®nal location of the enterprises. Thanks to the objectives and the activity programmes, the driving enterprise of the Technology Park enterprise promotes new organizations or integrates dierent institutional bodies and, thus, builds up organization networks able to lead processes and resources towards economic and scienti®c promotion. This is the reason why an essential feature of the development strategy of the Technology Park enterprise is a self-monitoring system, capable of verifying: . the achievement of the strategical objectives . the eectiveness, eciency and quality of the key-activities . the structural modi®cation of the technology park con®guration in its virtual territory. The Technology Park enterprise co-ordinates several networks whose principal missions are: (a) to produce and/or distribute basic services to all the nodes of the ``technopolitan district'' (economy of scale in services or economy in developing infrastructures) (b) to produce and/or distribute specialized services to enterprises operating on national and international market, directly (economy of appropriateness) (c) to promote transactions and interactions on behalf of the bodies located in the Technology Park (economy of integration). During the life cycle of every Technology Park, the need to create and support transaction and interaction with other organizations working at local, national and international level arises. For example, in the planning phase of the Technology Park there is a great necessity to be aware of similar experiences to develop a strategic plan which can diminish the failure risk avoiding those mistakes made by others; in the start-up phase it can be useful to have some methodology and operative instruments for an ecient launching of the activity; in the developing phase it is important to better the capability to intensify and make easier rhythms and quality of the relations with the highest number of operators in the technical, economical and institutional ®eld. The organizational model deriving from such a Technology Park enterprise refers to the integration of supporting systems capable of promoting both innovation cycles through technical scienti®c classes of services interesting for speci®c clusters and the ``internal'' and ``external'' conditions suitable to the social and economical development based on science and technology and to entrepreneurial growth for the whole ``technopolitan district''. In short, the organizational model is divided into three paths: market, services/products, supporting systems for the management and technopolitan environment.
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7.3. THE TECHNOLOGY PARK AND THE LOCAL SHORT-TERM DEVELOPMENT
7.3.1. Foreign investments Taking into account the role of the Technology Parks in the less favourite regions of the Community and their aim to attract foreign investments (Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies, 1993), the new features of such investments should be pointed out and the way the range of services oered by the Technology Park enterprise could satisfy the location demand of any ``performance company'' should be underlined. Markets instability and the rapidity of the technological developments stimulate organizative changes in the management of creation of productive unites that will be more ``self-managed'', ``functionally integrated'' and less ``functionally specialized''. Hence ``quality productive installations'' are characterised by the following key features: (a) presence of almost all the production cycle and the associated functions and competencies; (b) autonomous capability of research, development and knowledge; (c) decision making and control power de-centralization; (d) more entrust to the external network of buyers/suppliers; (e) wider partnership-based connections with the local goods and services suppliers; (f) more evaluation of the ``social responsibility'' of the production unity. These investments have, therefore, great interest in those Technology Parks able to help the ``performance company'' for the establishment of a ``local network'' which can be supported by the ``performance company'' in terms of ``state of the art'' competence, know-how and technologies, managerial and entrepreneurial capacities and more consolidated business partnership. Of course, the Technology Park enterprise will oer on a quality/cost competitive basis: . quali®ed personnel in the dierent ®elds generated by the productions interesting for the ``performance company''; . training and updating specialized infrastructures, R&D activities support; . suitable systems of communications; . a basis of quali®ed sub-suppliers. . the territorial area will oer suitable transport, health care, school, residential, recreative services. 7.3.2. Technology Parks and Regional Development Agencies The new international scenario and the completion of the Single European Market have stressed the need to provide small and medium enterprises with an international network of relationships.
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This need to support and stimulate the internationalization of our local and regional economic system calls for the establishment of an architecture of ``institutionalized'' inter-regional and trans-national relations. It is important, therefore, to mention for example the ``International Project''Ð sponsored by the Italian Regional Development Agencies (RDA)Ðin order to form an European network of agencies operating for the innovation and economic development of local and regional industrial systems (Pasquini, 1993). With this goal at the beginning of 1993 the National Association of Italian RDAAsso®r promoted the establishment of the ``EURODEVELOPMENT GEIE'' (European Economic Interest Group). GEIE's members are 34 Regional Development Agencies of ®ve European countries: Italy, Spain, France, Portugal and Belgium whose main activities aim at the supporting international co-operation between local SMEs with priority to innovative ®nancial instruments.
7.3.3. Requirements for the evolution of the Technology Parks With the breakdown of economical barriers, the multi-nationalization of enterprises, the emerging global city as ``dynamic hub''* other criteria can be identi®ed to evaluate the conditions of developments of the Technology Parks in a medium±long period. 1. Financial plan. Develop plans that incorporate public and private investments. 2. Privatisation conditions. Continue implementing the procedures and strategies for attracting private and foreign investors to participate in the development of the region. 3. Sites. Recognise that whether the Technology Park manages property or not, sites must be made available. 4. Infrastructure. Address the issue that both soft infrastructure (e.g. human resources) and hard infrastructure (e.g. communications, transportation especially by air, utilities) are needed to respond to the demands of knowledge-intensive ®rms and their employees. 5. Housing and quality-of-life. Housing and particularly quality of life conditions are requirements that must be considered before professionals can be asked to participate in any viable technopolis. Moreover, ``virtual work spaces'' must be recognized as fact to permit employees to work at home or in places other than the traditional ``oce''. Work policies need to be modi®ed to allow for this freedom, which may be more conducive to creativity in the long term. 6. Tourism. Encourage the eort to promote tourism. Tourism not only makes available ready revenue for region, but allows visitors from potential ®rms to have an introductory impression of the quality of life oered. Remember that tourism makes possible hotel rooms, conference space, recreation, and a constant examination of the attractiveness of the region. *A dynamic hub is a centre, a municipality, a city or cluster of cities that function as a single focused entity wherein it (they) can act uniformly in respect to the rest of the world.
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7. Incentive magnets. Creating incentives for attracting premier magnet ®rms should be part of the implementation strategy. One should not, however, ignore the ®rms of ``human scale'', the small ®rms that have local roots and need to be modernized, and those that surface from successful incubators. This eort is also part of incubation programs. Small ®rms well incubated may have the drive to enter the market with great zeal and new ``leading edge'' commodities, like Apple, Fairchild, Intel, Boeing, and other ®rms that started small. 8. Academic institutions. Explore the means for attracting quality research universities to the region. Private universities of rank are by intent directly responsive to the needs of society and are progressive in their plans of action when pro®t through revenue is forecast. The major role of the university is that of a cultural entity functionally indispensable for attracting technologists and scientists. Investigation has shown that people in high technology take at least one course at the local university and select a locale where the university has a top accreditation, especially in innovation technology. Universities (Smylor et al., 1993) have also contributed support by lending or allowing faculty members to engage in creative research outside the normal and established curriculum. 9. Security. Develop a regional co-operative approach to improve security. One important aspect of the quality-of-life package is security and protection of ideas, property, persons, and ®nances. 10. Globalization Conditions. Develop a deliberate approach to encourage the globalization of the economy by promoting partnering and service agreements with foreign entities. 11. Human Resources. Develop a pool of skilled and professional multilingual and transcultural personnel for immediate integration into new private and foreign ®rms to encourage the process of technological transfer into the region. The result from this infusion of skills brought about in part by participation in scienti®c and technological innovation, and partly by the in¯ux of professionals from other parts of the globe, will be to initiate the process of transferring technology downward and increasing employment opportunities. In eect, this process will permit upward mobility within the work force. Human beings learn through practice, the value of their work increases with experience. And as experience and knowledge increase human beings become more valuable and insightful. Education and experience in human beings preclude the inertia that comes with the use of natural resources. Thus human resources as a work force will become more valuable over time. The key to wealth has always been marshalling creativity and useful work through ever-widening circles of procedures, suppliers, championed and led by creators, researchers, and entrepreneurs. 7.4. TECHNOLOGY PARK EVOLUTION
With current interests embracing privatization, various facets of the free market, and ideas on how to commercialize knowledge pro®tably, the Technology Park is
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well positioned to be of service to all who are contemplating any of all of these pursuits. Before the implementation process can be considered for the next generation of technopolis, it is necessary to give thought to both the issues and the conditions that will aect and support the course of evolutionary change.
7.4.1. Issues What issues will contribute to the next stage in the evolution of the technopolis? There are at least six conditions or facilitating elements, that are perceived as instrumental for causing the next stage of technopolis to surface: 1. High level of local business co-operation. 2. Public funding to support part of the modernization of the existing infrastructure and to contribute ``seed capital'' for start-up research on public ventures. 3. Education, training and grooming of youngsters who will enter the work force at all skill levels, and a complementary program for upgrading current workers to required levels of skill. 4. Venture capital and business support made available to encourage locally spawned knowledge-intensive ®rms and innovators. 5. Cosmopolitan world view of key local groups and residents that fosters a global market perspective and a willingness to participate in the economics of free enterprises. 6. Choice and oering of an adequate pool of skilled and professional work force.
7.4.2. Condition for growth What are the necessary conditions for evolutionary growth? In a summary article of his book Robert Reich (1991a,b) said: ``In the emerging economy of the twenty-®rst century only one asset is growing more valuable as it is used: the problem-solving, problem-identifying, and strategic-brokering skills of a nation's citizens''. ``The more complex the task, the better preparation it provides for the next, even more complex task. One puzzle leads to another.''
It is also a question of assembling the right combination of skills to produce a synergy, a perfect mix, a ``meÂlange parfait'', for nascent ideas and concepts to take form. Isn't this the core of the knowledge industry? In sum then, as the skills for solving problems, identifying problems, and brokering develop and increase, and the links and partnering are extended, pro®ts will increase. The conditions for this mix to emerge are the product of putting the pieces for growth together. These pieces may include: 1. Clear idea for coherent growth
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2. Responsible team or teams for identifying the problems which arise solving problems sketching strategic networks and partnering 3. Public±private co-operation plan 4. Supportive relationship with government entities 5. Complementary strategy(ies) for developing skill resources 6. Marketable education to both young and mature people 7. Deliberately raising academic standards while recognizing that dierent people will respond dierently to excellence 8. Ecologically sound and available quality-of-life environment 9. Suitable infrastructure 10. Program management leadership A speci®c growth strategy must be decided upon by the time the concept is created and conditions put in place for the next stages. 7.5. STRATEGIES FOR THE NEXT PHASES OF A TECHNOLOGY PARK
Thinking now turns to strategic steps that may be taken by a Technology Park for attaining the momentum which will permit a coherent evolution to take place: partnering and linkages are necessary ingredients for nurturing the evolutionary process.
7.5.1. The partnering approach The concept of partnering has been created in response to the trends described earlier. Who participates in what aspect of project is the new trend setter for businesses. A product, a project, an idea may be brought to market with the assistance of several contributors who are linked together in a partnering arrangement without equity considerationsÐwhich is quite dierent from a partnership agreement which entails some form of ownership. Partnering arrangements may include participants who invest their time, talent and reputation for the long term ®nancial returns. The intention is to strengthen one's position in the marketplace by partnering with others. As in any complex mix of resources, the synergy developing from the partnering association will foster the emergence of bene®ts that have yet to be considered.
7.5.2. Establishing linkages An essential next step is to build upon and expand the network of linkages, with a deliberate strategy. The core approach to the structuring of linkages is similar to that of partnering, except that in linkages the connection is made with geographical, geo-economical and geopolitical rami®cations. Once again the bene®ts from linkages must be exam-
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ined from both sides: the side which is Technology Park's and the other side of the linked connection to the Technology Park. What gains are there for both sides? Also what gains are there for a third and a fourth party through the Technology Park? Linkages, as in any network, are based on being connected strategically to bene®cial regions for complementary purposesÐsome identi®ed, and as is often the case, many unrealized, and even not recognized. The basis for selecting strategic locations is that they provide access and linkages for future interests to other potentially favourable geographic areas for business.
7.5.3. The ``Techno-Polis'': today towards tomorrow Distilled to its essence, the core of this exploration suggests that there is a contrast between existing knowledge-based centres, currently identi®ed as ``technology parks'' and their descendants. Simply stated current Technology Parks are in principle fenced or marked sites wherein knowledge is given limited room to develop economically for the production of revenue. An identi®able piece of land is developed to become the site for a centre of high tech. The future evolution of this centre, however, will move beyond this level and will, by intent, aect, in¯uence, and change the environment in its proximity. Brie¯y, the Technology Park as a knowledge-based centre, with the criteria noted, will emerge into a techno-polis, a knowledge-based city. Its in¯uence will be regional, national and global. The residents of the future technopolis will look for the ®ts and the complementariness of technologies, the research areas and the selected commercialized endeavours, the acceptable quality-of-life modes, the synergistic linkages with others, and the rewarding partnering associations. The thesis is that since we are well acquainted with the technopolis model, by looking at its evolution in the direction of the future of city, the global city, it can be planned to evolve more coherently in that mode. As a growing and evolving organism, each part of the knowledge-polis will have its own centre, social dimension, economic base, and identity within the whole. The thesis proposed is that an organism evolves in a symbiotic process with many dierent associations supporting each other. This is also a metaphor for cities (Connors, 1993), companies, economic communities, and knowledge centres. In sum, the next stage of a technopolis will be its transformation into economically viable global cityÐa techno-polis. This metamorphosis will give life to a city that is knowledge productive, ecologically responsible, ®nancially autonomous (or partially autonomous), interdependent with complementary associations and suciently attractive to warrant local pride and a worthy tourist trade.
References Bailly, A. S., Coey, W. J., Paelinck, J. H. P. and PoleÁse, M. (1992) Spatial Econometrics of Services. Avebury, Aldershot.
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Bozzo, U. and Hoche-Mong, R. (1993) Tecnopolis Novus Ortus: evolution into the next generation. AURRP/IASP-Second World Conference. Montreal, Quebec. Centre Regional, for Development (1993) Calibrating Regional Incentives to the Quality of Mobile Investment in the Less Favoured Regions of the EC. University of Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K.. Connors, M. (1993) The Race to the Intelligent State. Blackwell, Oxford. Dioguardi, G. (Forthcoming) Parco Tecnologico. Enciclopedia Italiana di Giovanni Treccani. V Appendice, Italy. EMI (1993) The European Observatory for SME's. First Annual Report. co-ordinated by: EMI Small Business Research and Consultancy, AA Zoetermeer, The Netherlands. Maillat, D. and Lecoq, B. (1992) New technologies and transformation of regional structures in Europe: the role of the milieu. Entrepreneurship & Regional Development 4, 1±20. Pasquini, F. (1993) ASSOFIR. Roma, Italy. Porter, M. E. (1990) The Competitive Advantage of Nations. The Free Press, New York. Reich, R. B. (1991a) The Work of Nations. A.A. Knopf, New York. Reich, R. B. (1991b) The Real Economy. Atlantic Monthly. Smylor, R. W., Dietrich, G. B. and Gibson, D. V. (1993) The Entrepreneurial University: The Role of Higher Education in the United States in Technology Commercialisation and Economic Development. Blackwell, Oxford. SPRINT (1993) SPRINT Science Park Initiatives. Information Brochure, Technical Assistance Unit. LLuxembourg. Varaldo, R. (1993) La natura e la dinamica dell'impresa distrettuale. Seminar on I Distretti Industriali verso gli anni 2000. Prato, Italy.
PII: S0305-9006(98)00010-5
CHAPTER 7
Technology Park: an enterprise model Umberto Bozzo 7.1. THE TECHNOLOGY PARK AS ENTERPRISE-GENERATING ENTERPRISES
Citizens occupation and life quality, environment safety and infrastructure conformity to social and productive needs, are the indicators that generally express the social, economic and cultural level of a given geographical area, which is determined by its ``productivity''. When the enterprises represent the main instrument to reach higher productivity levels, it follows that their task is to be competitive in ever more open markets up to the global scale. The Government's goal, on the other hand, is the commitment to stimulate and support a suitable environment to increase the dynamic competitiveness of the enterprises. This is the main reason for the several initiatives undertaken all over the world for the creation of Technology Parks and similar structures (Science Parks, Technopoles, Enterprise and Innovation Centres, etc.) as instruments able to promote the creation of a successful local social and economic environment. This environment facilitates and speeds up innovation in both public and private existing organizations, it supports the creation and the growth of new entrepreneurial activities and promotes the location of exogenous enterprises. The reality of these initiatives is often represented by a site equipped with nice buildings located in natural surroundings, in which high intensity knowledge enterprises can operate. In other words, the Technology Park is a district in which knowledge-intensive enterprises operate making use, at the right time, of those factors suitable for the innovation of their own products and their own organization and production processes to achieve the best management and development. The most important factors of technology development are mainly made up by research and transfer services, by services of information and technologies diusion, by education and training services, by ®nancial services. 215
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Generally speaking, a ``driving'' organization takes upon itself the responsibility to de®ne the development strategy of the Technology Park and to arrange the above mentioned factors so that innovation can take place. Once these factors are available they can be placed at disposal of enterprises and institutions, outside the immediate geographical area. For example, enterprises and institutions already existing in neighbouring towns and cities and located in their central areas could be interested in supporting their own technological development by making use of the same factors made available to the enterprises located in the Technology Park. If this happens, the Technology Park will not have rigid limits on its territory, but will become a ``virtual'' district (``the technopolitan district'') whose boundaries are evolving since the Technology Park de®ned all the locations to which it can oer the fundamental factors for technological development. In such a district, the activities mentioned above lead to the creation of a suitable atmosphere to promote entrepreneurial, economical and social development and, thus, the creation of new enterprises. In this way the Technology Park can be considered not as a site, but a real enterprise-generating enterprise (Dioguardi, forthcoming) in which suitable structures are located to help the new enterprises in their ``start-up and take-o'' phase. A wide range of growing intensity knowledge services, a variety of technological and civil infrastructures make the Technology Park a long-term and high-risk investment, not only in terms of buildings. They also con®rm the need to act in the entrepreneurial way in all phases that mark this new type of organization from the inception to realisation and management. Warnings about times and risks of Technology Parks and consequent studies of market orientation, feasibility studies, experience exchanges on international scale, training and co-operation activities have been the starting point of dierent European Community SPRINT Programme initiatives (SPRINT, 1993). Starting from some of these initiatives, and the whole experience of Technopolis in Valenzano-Bari, in the south of Italy, the main characteristics of a Technology Park as a nowadays enterprise and some ideas that could guide its evolution in the middle and long-term (Bozzo and Hoche-Mong, 1993) are proposed as follows.
7.2. A TECHNOLOGY PARK ENTERPRISE MODEL
The mission of the Technology Park enterprise is to develop its own ``technopolitan district'' conceived as a whole of enterprises ``clusters''* with an high intensity knowledge: an example of a single cluster is shown by the enterprises which supply *Cluster: ``a number of things growing, fastened or ocurring close together'' (Collins English Dictionary). This quotation is reported to underline three dierent ways to ``group'' which is also eective for the enterprises in the technopolitan district.
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217
linguistic, electronic publishing, data banks, telemarketing, graphics, advertising, software services, etc. Strategy and goals of the Technology Park enterprise are based on the competitive analysis (Porter, 1990) of the speci®c cluster. The identi®cation and establishment of classes of services supplied by the Technology Park enterprise, therefore, have to develop and better that ``value chain'' able to assure external economies useful to the enterprises belonging to each speci®c cluster that has, or could have, importance for the economy of the territorial area in which the Technology Park is located (Maillat and Lecoq, 1992; Bailly et al., 1992; Varaldo, 1993). The ``driving'' organization of a Technology Park is an enterprise capable of promoting and managing activity programmes ``equipped'' with quali®ed scienti®c and technical knowledge, managerial services and culture, infrastructures, ®nancial and technical services, human resources; such programmes aim at the achievement of the objectives peculiar to most of the Technology Parks. In fact if we give a look at the typical Technology Park dossier, we might read about: . attraction of knowledge intensive companies . support of innovation in existing and operating enterprises and organizations . creation of new knowledge intensive enterprises in the virtual territory of the Technology Park, in which the enterprises locate themselves not only because they ®nd favourable factors, but also because they can make business, which are the strategic goals. The main classes of the activity programmes regard: . innovation development (industrial research, technological transfer, technologies diusion) . specialized services (product and process certi®cation, advanced computing and advanced communication services) . human factor development . development of a local cultural atmosphere favourable to innovation and social economic growth (industrialists, union representatives, public administrators, journalists, employees, students, etc.). The Technology Park enterprise undertakes the installation, the management and development of high technical and scienti®c products and services which could be sold on a national and international market, both for its own competitiveness and economic management goals and to promote relations between local enterprises and the national and foreign ones (EMI, 1993). The Technology Park enterprise strategy is mainly based on the commitment and addressed to develop research activity, to work in advanced technology ®elds, to sell its own specialized and training services to contracted customers, to expand the technological network and the related relationships useful for the social, economical and cultural development inside and outside its own site. Other important elements in the strategy are the choices whether to directly operate in the real estate and ®nancial ®eld: for example, even if the enterprises could
218
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temporarily use equipped spaces available in the Technology Park, the opportunities to reinvest the buildings in industrial or urban areas are not neglected also through agreements between the Technology Park enterprise and the local authorities competent for the ®nal location of the enterprises. Thanks to the objectives and the activity programmes, the driving enterprise of the Technology Park enterprise promotes new organizations or integrates dierent institutional bodies and, thus, builds up organization networks able to lead processes and resources towards economic and scienti®c promotion. This is the reason why an essential feature of the development strategy of the Technology Park enterprise is a self-monitoring system, capable of verifying: . the achievement of the strategical objectives . the eectiveness, eciency and quality of the key-activities . the structural modi®cation of the technology park con®guration in its virtual territory. The Technology Park enterprise co-ordinates several networks whose principal missions are: (a) to produce and/or distribute basic services to all the nodes of the ``technopolitan district'' (economy of scale in services or economy in developing infrastructures) (b) to produce and/or distribute specialized services to enterprises operating on national and international market, directly (economy of appropriateness) (c) to promote transactions and interactions on behalf of the bodies located in the Technology Park (economy of integration). During the life cycle of every Technology Park, the need to create and support transaction and interaction with other organizations working at local, national and international level arises. For example, in the planning phase of the Technology Park there is a great necessity to be aware of similar experiences to develop a strategic plan which can diminish the failure risk avoiding those mistakes made by others; in the start-up phase it can be useful to have some methodology and operative instruments for an ecient launching of the activity; in the developing phase it is important to better the capability to intensify and make easier rhythms and quality of the relations with the highest number of operators in the technical, economical and institutional ®eld. The organizational model deriving from such a Technology Park enterprise refers to the integration of supporting systems capable of promoting both innovation cycles through technical scienti®c classes of services interesting for speci®c clusters and the ``internal'' and ``external'' conditions suitable to the social and economical development based on science and technology and to entrepreneurial growth for the whole ``technopolitan district''. In short, the organizational model is divided into three paths: market, services/products, supporting systems for the management and technopolitan environment.
Spatial Aspects of Innovation Policies
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7.3. THE TECHNOLOGY PARK AND THE LOCAL SHORT-TERM DEVELOPMENT
7.3.1. Foreign investments Taking into account the role of the Technology Parks in the less favourite regions of the Community and their aim to attract foreign investments (Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies, 1993), the new features of such investments should be pointed out and the way the range of services oered by the Technology Park enterprise could satisfy the location demand of any ``performance company'' should be underlined. Markets instability and the rapidity of the technological developments stimulate organizative changes in the management of creation of productive unites that will be more ``self-managed'', ``functionally integrated'' and less ``functionally specialized''. Hence ``quality productive installations'' are characterised by the following key features: (a) presence of almost all the production cycle and the associated functions and competencies; (b) autonomous capability of research, development and knowledge; (c) decision making and control power de-centralization; (d) more entrust to the external network of buyers/suppliers; (e) wider partnership-based connections with the local goods and services suppliers; (f) more evaluation of the ``social responsibility'' of the production unity. These investments have, therefore, great interest in those Technology Parks able to help the ``performance company'' for the establishment of a ``local network'' which can be supported by the ``performance company'' in terms of ``state of the art'' competence, know-how and technologies, managerial and entrepreneurial capacities and more consolidated business partnership. Of course, the Technology Park enterprise will oer on a quality/cost competitive basis: . quali®ed personnel in the dierent ®elds generated by the productions interesting for the ``performance company''; . training and updating specialized infrastructures, R&D activities support; . suitable systems of communications; . a basis of quali®ed sub-suppliers. . the territorial area will oer suitable transport, health care, school, residential, recreative services. 7.3.2. Technology Parks and Regional Development Agencies The new international scenario and the completion of the Single European Market have stressed the need to provide small and medium enterprises with an international network of relationships.
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This need to support and stimulate the internationalization of our local and regional economic system calls for the establishment of an architecture of ``institutionalized'' inter-regional and trans-national relations. It is important, therefore, to mention for example the ``International Project''Ð sponsored by the Italian Regional Development Agencies (RDA)Ðin order to form an European network of agencies operating for the innovation and economic development of local and regional industrial systems (Pasquini, 1993). With this goal at the beginning of 1993 the National Association of Italian RDAAsso®r promoted the establishment of the ``EURODEVELOPMENT GEIE'' (European Economic Interest Group). GEIE's members are 34 Regional Development Agencies of ®ve European countries: Italy, Spain, France, Portugal and Belgium whose main activities aim at the supporting international co-operation between local SMEs with priority to innovative ®nancial instruments.
7.3.3. Requirements for the evolution of the Technology Parks With the breakdown of economical barriers, the multi-nationalization of enterprises, the emerging global city as ``dynamic hub''* other criteria can be identi®ed to evaluate the conditions of developments of the Technology Parks in a medium±long period. 1. Financial plan. Develop plans that incorporate public and private investments. 2. Privatisation conditions. Continue implementing the procedures and strategies for attracting private and foreign investors to participate in the development of the region. 3. Sites. Recognise that whether the Technology Park manages property or not, sites must be made available. 4. Infrastructure. Address the issue that both soft infrastructure (e.g. human resources) and hard infrastructure (e.g. communications, transportation especially by air, utilities) are needed to respond to the demands of knowledge-intensive ®rms and their employees. 5. Housing and quality-of-life. Housing and particularly quality of life conditions are requirements that must be considered before professionals can be asked to participate in any viable technopolis. Moreover, ``virtual work spaces'' must be recognized as fact to permit employees to work at home or in places other than the traditional ``oce''. Work policies need to be modi®ed to allow for this freedom, which may be more conducive to creativity in the long term. 6. Tourism. Encourage the eort to promote tourism. Tourism not only makes available ready revenue for region, but allows visitors from potential ®rms to have an introductory impression of the quality of life oered. Remember that tourism makes possible hotel rooms, conference space, recreation, and a constant examination of the attractiveness of the region. *A dynamic hub is a centre, a municipality, a city or cluster of cities that function as a single focused entity wherein it (they) can act uniformly in respect to the rest of the world.
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7. Incentive magnets. Creating incentives for attracting premier magnet ®rms should be part of the implementation strategy. One should not, however, ignore the ®rms of ``human scale'', the small ®rms that have local roots and need to be modernized, and those that surface from successful incubators. This eort is also part of incubation programs. Small ®rms well incubated may have the drive to enter the market with great zeal and new ``leading edge'' commodities, like Apple, Fairchild, Intel, Boeing, and other ®rms that started small. 8. Academic institutions. Explore the means for attracting quality research universities to the region. Private universities of rank are by intent directly responsive to the needs of society and are progressive in their plans of action when pro®t through revenue is forecast. The major role of the university is that of a cultural entity functionally indispensable for attracting technologists and scientists. Investigation has shown that people in high technology take at least one course at the local university and select a locale where the university has a top accreditation, especially in innovation technology. Universities (Smylor et al., 1993) have also contributed support by lending or allowing faculty members to engage in creative research outside the normal and established curriculum. 9. Security. Develop a regional co-operative approach to improve security. One important aspect of the quality-of-life package is security and protection of ideas, property, persons, and ®nances. 10. Globalization Conditions. Develop a deliberate approach to encourage the globalization of the economy by promoting partnering and service agreements with foreign entities. 11. Human Resources. Develop a pool of skilled and professional multilingual and transcultural personnel for immediate integration into new private and foreign ®rms to encourage the process of technological transfer into the region. The result from this infusion of skills brought about in part by participation in scienti®c and technological innovation, and partly by the in¯ux of professionals from other parts of the globe, will be to initiate the process of transferring technology downward and increasing employment opportunities. In eect, this process will permit upward mobility within the work force. Human beings learn through practice, the value of their work increases with experience. And as experience and knowledge increase human beings become more valuable and insightful. Education and experience in human beings preclude the inertia that comes with the use of natural resources. Thus human resources as a work force will become more valuable over time. The key to wealth has always been marshalling creativity and useful work through ever-widening circles of procedures, suppliers, championed and led by creators, researchers, and entrepreneurs. 7.4. TECHNOLOGY PARK EVOLUTION
With current interests embracing privatization, various facets of the free market, and ideas on how to commercialize knowledge pro®tably, the Technology Park is
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well positioned to be of service to all who are contemplating any of all of these pursuits. Before the implementation process can be considered for the next generation of technopolis, it is necessary to give thought to both the issues and the conditions that will aect and support the course of evolutionary change.
7.4.1. Issues What issues will contribute to the next stage in the evolution of the technopolis? There are at least six conditions or facilitating elements, that are perceived as instrumental for causing the next stage of technopolis to surface: 1. High level of local business co-operation. 2. Public funding to support part of the modernization of the existing infrastructure and to contribute ``seed capital'' for start-up research on public ventures. 3. Education, training and grooming of youngsters who will enter the work force at all skill levels, and a complementary program for upgrading current workers to required levels of skill. 4. Venture capital and business support made available to encourage locally spawned knowledge-intensive ®rms and innovators. 5. Cosmopolitan world view of key local groups and residents that fosters a global market perspective and a willingness to participate in the economics of free enterprises. 6. Choice and oering of an adequate pool of skilled and professional work force.
7.4.2. Condition for growth What are the necessary conditions for evolutionary growth? In a summary article of his book Robert Reich (1991a,b) said: ``In the emerging economy of the twenty-®rst century only one asset is growing more valuable as it is used: the problem-solving, problem-identifying, and strategic-brokering skills of a nation's citizens''. ``The more complex the task, the better preparation it provides for the next, even more complex task. One puzzle leads to another.''
It is also a question of assembling the right combination of skills to produce a synergy, a perfect mix, a ``meÂlange parfait'', for nascent ideas and concepts to take form. Isn't this the core of the knowledge industry? In sum then, as the skills for solving problems, identifying problems, and brokering develop and increase, and the links and partnering are extended, pro®ts will increase. The conditions for this mix to emerge are the product of putting the pieces for growth together. These pieces may include: 1. Clear idea for coherent growth
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2. Responsible team or teams for identifying the problems which arise solving problems sketching strategic networks and partnering 3. Public±private co-operation plan 4. Supportive relationship with government entities 5. Complementary strategy(ies) for developing skill resources 6. Marketable education to both young and mature people 7. Deliberately raising academic standards while recognizing that dierent people will respond dierently to excellence 8. Ecologically sound and available quality-of-life environment 9. Suitable infrastructure 10. Program management leadership A speci®c growth strategy must be decided upon by the time the concept is created and conditions put in place for the next stages. 7.5. STRATEGIES FOR THE NEXT PHASES OF A TECHNOLOGY PARK
Thinking now turns to strategic steps that may be taken by a Technology Park for attaining the momentum which will permit a coherent evolution to take place: partnering and linkages are necessary ingredients for nurturing the evolutionary process.
7.5.1. The partnering approach The concept of partnering has been created in response to the trends described earlier. Who participates in what aspect of project is the new trend setter for businesses. A product, a project, an idea may be brought to market with the assistance of several contributors who are linked together in a partnering arrangement without equity considerationsÐwhich is quite dierent from a partnership agreement which entails some form of ownership. Partnering arrangements may include participants who invest their time, talent and reputation for the long term ®nancial returns. The intention is to strengthen one's position in the marketplace by partnering with others. As in any complex mix of resources, the synergy developing from the partnering association will foster the emergence of bene®ts that have yet to be considered.
7.5.2. Establishing linkages An essential next step is to build upon and expand the network of linkages, with a deliberate strategy. The core approach to the structuring of linkages is similar to that of partnering, except that in linkages the connection is made with geographical, geo-economical and geopolitical rami®cations. Once again the bene®ts from linkages must be exam-
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ined from both sides: the side which is Technology Park's and the other side of the linked connection to the Technology Park. What gains are there for both sides? Also what gains are there for a third and a fourth party through the Technology Park? Linkages, as in any network, are based on being connected strategically to bene®cial regions for complementary purposesÐsome identi®ed, and as is often the case, many unrealized, and even not recognized. The basis for selecting strategic locations is that they provide access and linkages for future interests to other potentially favourable geographic areas for business.
7.5.3. The ``Techno-Polis'': today towards tomorrow Distilled to its essence, the core of this exploration suggests that there is a contrast between existing knowledge-based centres, currently identi®ed as ``technology parks'' and their descendants. Simply stated current Technology Parks are in principle fenced or marked sites wherein knowledge is given limited room to develop economically for the production of revenue. An identi®able piece of land is developed to become the site for a centre of high tech. The future evolution of this centre, however, will move beyond this level and will, by intent, aect, in¯uence, and change the environment in its proximity. Brie¯y, the Technology Park as a knowledge-based centre, with the criteria noted, will emerge into a techno-polis, a knowledge-based city. Its in¯uence will be regional, national and global. The residents of the future technopolis will look for the ®ts and the complementariness of technologies, the research areas and the selected commercialized endeavours, the acceptable quality-of-life modes, the synergistic linkages with others, and the rewarding partnering associations. The thesis is that since we are well acquainted with the technopolis model, by looking at its evolution in the direction of the future of city, the global city, it can be planned to evolve more coherently in that mode. As a growing and evolving organism, each part of the knowledge-polis will have its own centre, social dimension, economic base, and identity within the whole. The thesis proposed is that an organism evolves in a symbiotic process with many dierent associations supporting each other. This is also a metaphor for cities (Connors, 1993), companies, economic communities, and knowledge centres. In sum, the next stage of a technopolis will be its transformation into economically viable global cityÐa techno-polis. This metamorphosis will give life to a city that is knowledge productive, ecologically responsible, ®nancially autonomous (or partially autonomous), interdependent with complementary associations and suciently attractive to warrant local pride and a worthy tourist trade.
References Bailly, A. S., Coey, W. J., Paelinck, J. H. P. and PoleÁse, M. (1992) Spatial Econometrics of Services. Avebury, Aldershot.
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Bozzo, U. and Hoche-Mong, R. (1993) Tecnopolis Novus Ortus: evolution into the next generation. AURRP/IASP-Second World Conference. Montreal, Quebec. Centre Regional, for Development (1993) Calibrating Regional Incentives to the Quality of Mobile Investment in the Less Favoured Regions of the EC. University of Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K.. Connors, M. (1993) The Race to the Intelligent State. Blackwell, Oxford. Dioguardi, G. (Forthcoming) Parco Tecnologico. Enciclopedia Italiana di Giovanni Treccani. V Appendice, Italy. EMI (1993) The European Observatory for SME's. First Annual Report. co-ordinated by: EMI Small Business Research and Consultancy, AA Zoetermeer, The Netherlands. Maillat, D. and Lecoq, B. (1992) New technologies and transformation of regional structures in Europe: the role of the milieu. Entrepreneurship & Regional Development 4, 1±20. Pasquini, F. (1993) ASSOFIR. Roma, Italy. Porter, M. E. (1990) The Competitive Advantage of Nations. The Free Press, New York. Reich, R. B. (1991a) The Work of Nations. A.A. Knopf, New York. Reich, R. B. (1991b) The Real Economy. Atlantic Monthly. Smylor, R. W., Dietrich, G. B. and Gibson, D. V. (1993) The Entrepreneurial University: The Role of Higher Education in the United States in Technology Commercialisation and Economic Development. Blackwell, Oxford. SPRINT (1993) SPRINT Science Park Initiatives. Information Brochure, Technical Assistance Unit. LLuxembourg. Varaldo, R. (1993) La natura e la dinamica dell'impresa distrettuale. Seminar on I Distretti Industriali verso gli anni 2000. Prato, Italy.