How local knowledge networks and firm internal characteristics evolve across time inside science parks

Abstract

In this chapter we analyze how firms’ characteristics, along with the network that each firm establishes, evolve through three different periods of time: incubation, growth, and maturity. We observe that as firms stay longer in the park, they have a higher number of direct relationships, and also these relationships tend to be stronger in terms of both frequency and friendship. Nevertheless, this higher level of interactions do not benefit firms in the same way, being the best period for improving innovation, the growth initial period, in which firms have between 3 and 6 years.