A Comparative Study on the Management Model of Technology Parks in Taiwan

Abstract

Taiwan is often named as “Technology Island”. Owing to the success of Hsinchu Science Park, many other Science/technology Parks have been developed. Some were developed and managed by the government, while the others were developed and managed by private sector, or by a combination of both. Thus technology firms have more choices to locate their factories. However, after the development of technology parks, the management becomes the most critical factor to the service quality for the users. The management centers not only have to maintain the facilities, but also have to set up a comfortable environment for the research and design units. In addition, they should provide the firms all kinds of instant services. Since Taiwan has evolved from a labor-intensive country to a technology-intensive one, the number of knowledge workers is increasing. The type of the environment and the services provided by these science parks must keep on with the progress of modern technologies. Therefore the performance of the management center in a technology park depends on whether they can provide a fine space, good services, and a platform for companies to communicate with each other. The management may even affect the future development of the technology parks.

In this paper, we investigate the differences among different park management models. Three technology parks in Taiwan were taken as the research targets. They are Hsinchu Science Park developed and managed by the government, Nankang Software Park operated with the cooperation of the government and a private organization, and Konglin Taipei Silicon Valley developed and managed mainly by a private organization. Through data collection, questionnaires, and interviews, we have summarized the advantage and the disadvantage of different management modes. The results show that some aspects the management center need improvement, however, the research findings can be a good reference for the planning and management of future new technology parks.