Science and Technology Parks (STPs) have fueled many debates on their effectiveness in policies to enhance innovation and regional economic growth. Some authors put emphasis on advantages of physical proximity between on-site firms and the university, while others pay increasingly attention to benefits from social capital between the stakeholders involved. According to theory, social capital works as a 'glue that binds' stakeholders who may originally have different interests, visions and different power positions. Adopting the last point of view, the aim of the paper is to increase understanding of the role of social capital in performance of STPs. The paper explores the relationship between growth and innovativeness of STPs and social capital-related power position, trust, and shared visions, using regression analysis. We make use of a survey-based sample of almost 50 STPs in various Asian countries. With regard to stakeholders and social capital, we distinguish between STPs' management, local university, local government and national government. We control for variation on country-level regarding innovativeness and planning culture and for variation in STPs' land-size. Our results show that higher STPs' growth (numbers of firms) tends to go along with some shortage in social capital, mainly on the local level concerning university and government. This situation may point to different opinions about growth, connected to physical limits regarding land and road system. In contrast, social capital on the local level but also national level, tends to be positively associated with degree of R&D orientation of STP firms.

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The number of Science and Technology Parks (STPs) is still growing fast in some parts in Europe but also in Asia. Policy makers tend to see STPs as an effective tool in enhancing knowledge-based local/regional growth, though there are some doubts on positive impacts of STPs in developed countries, while countries may also differ in institutional context of STPs influencing growth. The paper contributes to the literature by increasing understanding of STPs’ impacts in Asian, with regard to how the concept is elaborated in practice and which factors influence differences in growth of STPs. First, the concept of STPs and how it has been used in the recent will be analysed. Next, a framework (input-outcome) will be developed of factors determining STPs performance. The framework includes among others physical infrastructure factors, and institutional and social capital factors. A data base of 41 Asian STPs will be used to explore the influence of these factors on firm growth of STPs while applying regression analysis. Our preliminary results indicate a positive influence on STP growth of size of STPs (land), proximity to international airports, networking of STP actors over larger distances, and public management of the STP, as opposed to private or public-private management. Remarkably, the distance to university and regional location tend not to matter.@en