Internationalization of the Zenit Science Parks

As we said before, one of the academic studies of Science Parks and Incubators is about the assessment of themselves. According to Biglia, there are six main performance indicators:
• SP patrimonial structure
• SP internal development
• Repercussion of the SP in the territory
• Economic-financial aspects
• Human resources and technical Scientific productivity
• International and inter-regional relationship development

In this chapter, we are going to focus on why international relationships are so important and how they can be developed.
In recent decades, the global economic scenario has undergone major transformations due to several factors such as globalization, the emergence of new markets, technological and information advances, and a growing demand for novelty, leading to strong socio-economic development and generating changes at various levels in organizations. At the same time, uncertainty and the pace of change directly affected the markets, intensifying competition, which has contributed to the increase of organizational challenges, and creating the need for companies to reassess their strategies. The literature on international business has highlighted that international expansion represents an opportunity for growth and to create value for the company. Enterprises that enter international markets generally increase their technological and market expertise, improve their performance and often become more innovative and therefore also stronger competitors in their national markets.
The internationalization of a Science Park is mainly based on international partnership with other Science Parks, Business Incubators, international institution and organizations, but it also depends on the internationalization characteristics of its tenant companies. This part is more focused on the latter aspect, while we are going to deal with the first one, in a detailed way, in the benchmarking analysis, concerning the internationalization part of the three Science Parks analyzed and in the internationalization of Zenit part. The theories that deal with the internationalization of firms according to their analytical perspective can be classified into two main groups. First, the group of approaches towards internationalization is based on economic criteria aiming at the maximization of profit. Decisions of large multinational companies are supposed to be guided by these approaches (ANDERSEN and BUVIK, 2002). The second group, the behavioral approaches, consider that the internationalization process depends on knowledge and attitudes, perceptions and behavior of decision makers in the pursuit of risk reduction (ANDERSEN and BUVIK, 2002). This perspective is mainly represented by the stages models such as the Uppsala Model (JOHANSON and VAHLNE, 1977) and the I-Models (BILKEY and TESAR, 1977; CAVUSGIL, 1980; CZINKOTA, 1982; REID, 1981), the Network Model (COVIELLO and MUNRO, 1997; JOHANSON and VAHLNE, 2003), the Born Globals view and the International Entrepreneurship (MADSEN and SERVAIS, 1997, OVIATT and MCDOUGALL, 1994; RENNIES, 1993).
Science Parks have a wider range of companies target than the Incubators: from start-up to Multinationals, therefore the two approaches are valid. If we would focus on the incubators only, then the behavioral approach will be prioritized, since their incubated companies, are mostly micro and small technology companies with limited resources.

A common characteristics of the SP resident companies is that they are mainly knowledgebased enterprises, which normally imply high degrees of innovation and utilization of technology than traditional business. They are continuously exposed to the phenomenon of globalization and its effects. The global character of technology creates global markets for the products and processes based on technological knowledge. Even though technologies are patentable, new technology based firms (NTBF) can expect international competition because of the technology’s dynamic evolvement. This is one reason why NTBF should engage in early-stage internationalization in order to grow and be competitive.
Internationalization depends also on the market demand. A small domestic markets could make the early internationalization essential, while there are NTBF coming from larger countries but the products and processes on which these firms base their operations might be highly specialized corresponding to a very narrow market niche. Thus, in order to grow these firms have to become international, serving their customers on a global scale.
Internationalization is not only an issue of growth, it might be an issue of survival, for companies operating in certain industries. The last years of development in the IT-sector has shown the importance of timing and fast responses in so called emerging technology markets. To take an early and global market position is an important competitive advantage. Being a first-mover lead to a competitive scenario described as “the-winner-takes-it-all”. Thus, for some new technology based firms early internationalization is a necessity for long term survival and competitiveness.
NTBF internationalization also concern the presence in the places where the technological knowledge is especially advanced and developing fast, the so called “hot-spots”. One such “hot-spot” should of course be their own Science Park but there might also be other technological “hot-spots” in other parts of the world for the same or related technological knowledge.
Some NTBF also need to be present on the international venture capital markets in order to secure enough capital investment to finance product development activities and costs associated with the growth and expansion of the business.
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