Resumo

The Open Innovation (OI) concept has been developed based on firms' context and their practices towards profiting from innovations. OI refers to “a distributed innovation process based on purposively managed knowledge flows across organizational boundaries” (Chesbrough & Bogers, 2014, p. 17). It considers Research and Development (R&D) as an open system and suggests that valuable ideas can come from inside or outside the company. Therefore, it will allow the organization to sustain its competitive position in the industry value chain over time.

The relationship between OI, science parks and governance has been partially stressed by previous studies (Felin & Zenger, 2015, Silva et al., 2020). In this sense, it lacks an integrative perspective pointing out to how the different modes of governance in STPs can shape the mechanisms adopted in OI processes. We present the following research question: how the governance of science parks shapes the process and mechanisms of OI under the perspective of University/MNEs relationships? This paper aims to analyze how OI in STPs occur, considering the role of governance in the process.

Science parks are a specialized type of local agglomeration that provides a unique environment for accelerating technological innovation, nurturing new start-up firms, attracting investment and generating economic growth. In order to conduct the research, we searched for the available literature and connect science parks, open innovation and governance to discuss how science parks’ different governance modes might be triggered by open innovation practices.

The current study research is a qualitative approach using an incorporated cross-country multiple case study as a research strategy. Additionally, case studies are flexible research approaches and suited to a range of different types of research questions that can be used in all types of research: exploratory, descriptive or explanatory (Yin, 2017). For this purpose, two STPs were studied and compared: Tecnopuc, located in Brazil and Polo Technologico Di Pavia, located in Italy.

We identified that OI processes in science parks present specific characteristics: firstly, the induced OI (top-down) in the case of the university governance model, where the MNE necessarily needs to develop a research or academic project within the university. Secondly, the spontaneous OI (bottom-up) in the case of private governance, where the MNE searches for collaborations in a spontaneous way, without the obligation of developing research projects with the university.

We identified that OI processes in STPs present specific characteristics: firstly, the induced OI (top-down) in the case of the university governance model, where the MNE necessarily needs to develop a research or academic project within the university. Secondly, the spontaneous OI (bottom-up) in the case of private governance, where the MNE searches for collaborations in a spontaneous way, without the obligation of developing research projects with the university.

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