Measuring regional innovation and entrepreneurship: The case of Taiwan science parks

Abstract

In the face of internationalization and rapid industrial transformation environment, how to sustain a regional innovation and entrepreneurship has become an important issue of science park strategic planning. Having reviewed four theoretical building blocks: (1) the creative class theory, (2) intellectual capital, (3) regional innovation system, and (4) industrial clusters, the study developed a survey instruments with four dimensions and 15 indicators to measure the regional innovation and entrepreneurship. The questionnaires were distributed to 100 experts such as managers of Taiwan North, Central, and South Science Park Administrations, and related research areas professors, managers of Innovation Incubator Center and corporate R&D managers. There are total 46 valid returned questionnaires, an overall respondent rate 46%. By AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Method) analysis, this study has shown that "Industrial Cluster" followed by "Regional Entrepreneurship", "Regional Culture", and finally is "Regional Financing" are crucial. (2) the first three indicators of global priority are "Upstream, midstream, and downstream industries integrity", "Assistance of Regional Innovation Incubator", and "Abundant regional talents pool"; (3) in each dimensions, "Abundant Regional venture capital" is the most important indicator in regional financing dimension, "Upstream, midstream, and downstream industries integrity" is the most important indicator in industry cluster dimension, "Assistance of Regional Innovation Incubator" is the most important indicator in regional entrepreneurship dimension, "Encourage self-entrepreneurship" is the most important indicator in regional culture dimension. The results are helpful to policy guides Taiwan Science Park Administrations to sustain healthy regional innovation and entrepreneurship system in the island and where else. © 2010 IEEE.