Do Science Parks Promote Companies’ Innovative Performance? Micro Evidence from Shanghai Zhangjiang National Innovation Independent Demonstration Zone

Abstract

Science parks are considered to be key drivers of innovative economic activities and are important tools for countries and regions to achieve sustainable development. However, there still exists controversy about the positive effect of the science parks on the companies’ innovative performance. In this study, we constructed six hypotheses according to previous studies and tested them in the Shanghai Zhangjiang National Innovation Independent Demonstration Zone to answer two major research questions, i.e., (1) “Do science parks promote companies’ innovative performance?” and (2) “What factors in science parks affect the likelihood and intensity of companies’ innovative performance?”. Specifically, we selected 911 companies within the park and 861 companies outside the park using the coarsened exact matching method and applied the zero-inflated negative binomial model to identify the relationship between the company’s presence within the science park and the company’s innovative performance. Then, we applied the Heckman two-step model to further explore the key impact factors affecting the intensity of the innovation activities of the companies in the park. The results confirmed our first hypothesis that science parks can promote companies’ innovative performance. Moreover, we obtained two other findings. First, if a company is located within a science park, it can greatly improve the probability of innovation of that company, but it does not have any significant impact on the intensity. In other words, science parks promote more innovation among companies lacking innovation experience than those with innovation experience. Secondly, the reason why science parks can promote innovation is the knowledge spillover of innovation supporting institutions and high-tech enterprises in the parks, which is limited to a small geographical range. Our study provided new evidence on the positive role of science parks on companies’ innovative performance and offered a valuable sample for the research of science parks in developing countries. In addition, the policy suggestions we raised have reference value for developing countries to take full advantage of science parks to achieve sustainable development of their innovative economy.