Conclusion

7. Conclusions

7.3. Conclusion

This case study has examined, through interviews and secondary data, how being a part of Agro Food Park affects the product innovation process of its tenants. The aim was to investigate the already proven relationship between Science Parks and innovation (Löfsten

& Lindelöf, 2002, 2003; Lindelöf & Löfsten, 2004; Siegel et al. 2003; Vásquez-Urriago et al., 2014). Here, we add to the existing literature by delivering an enhanced understanding of how a Science Park, geared towards the food industry, impacts the process of product innovation of its tenants. The main finding of our study is that Agro Food Park impacts the tenants' product innovation process by facilitating access to relevant networks. Our study uncovers that this is accomplished by a mix of factors including a strict industry focus, network facilitators (management, incubator, network institutions, and interactive features), and being located in proximity to important players in the respective industry. This allows tenants to acquire resources and access customers, suppliers, specialized workforce, and experts. As a consequence, the tenants can speed up their process and produce more competitive product offers. When looking into the product innovation process, these impacts cause the most prominent effects

the development phase. Furthermore, the impact is especially salient for startups and SMEs while it is less strong for larger companies. Also, the time elapsed since joining the park has a positive relationship with park impact since trust derived from the frequency of interaction contributes to more valuable knowledge exchange.

Looking into the challenges that the food industry is facing, Science Parks with a similar setup as Agro Food Park, can play a role in addressing them. The complexity of innovation is argued to be of hindrance to innovation activities within the food industry (Capitanio et al., 2010). Since Science Parks specifically focus on network building, this complexity can be reduced through access to relevant inputs and knowledge sharing through the network.

Moreover, firms operating in the food sector have mostly relied on internal resources and capabilities in their innovation processes. This contributed to the low degree of novelty in food product innovations and the high failure rate of new products (Khan et al., 2014).

Hence, increased opportunities for accessing resources externally through relevant networks can impact the novelty of innovation and the success of new products. Furthermore, this speeds up tenants' innovation processes, which also prepares them to react faster to changing consumer demands and pressures of the industry (Santoro et al., 2017). Concluding, concerning the need for innovation intermediaries in the food sector (Klerkx & Leeuwis, 2008), we propose Science Parks as suitable initiatives to fill the gap.

As an outlook, we want to outline a potential pathway for the future development of a Food Science Park. Currently, Agro Food Park, as our case for a Food Science Park, mainly promotes incremental innovation of its tenants. Incremental innovation is the prominent innovation form in the food industry (Khan et al., 2014). However, considering long-term challenges of the food industry, such as world hunger or climate change, more radical innovations are needed. It is arguable if the current setup of Agro Food Park allows for such innovations to flourish. The membership of Agro Food Park mainly yields an impact that results in incremental improvements to already existing goods and services (Norman &

Verganti, 2014). However, radical innovation stems from breakthrough technologies building on existing state-of-the-art or past technological developments (Kelley et al., 2013). Hence, to promote such innovation, the park would have to stimulate technological development and scientific inputs to a larger extent. Also, a stronger impact on sharing and co-creating ideas amongst tenants would benefit such development. With the new university building and extensive plans to expand, the future of Agro Food Park might uncover the potential for more radical innovation. This would excel the innovation power and importance of the park for the food industry.

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Appendix

Appendix 1: Interview Guides ...1

Interview Guide Agro Food Park ...1

Interview Guide Tenants of Agro Food Park ...4

Interview Guide Agro Business Park ...7

Appendix 2: Transcripts of Interviewees ...10

Interview: Agro Food Park Management ...10

Interview: Foodjob Nordic ...22

Interview: SEGES ...37

Interview: Sweetkynd ...48

Interview: Cath Mersh Communications ...58

Interview: Innova Consult ...66

Interview: Arla ...73

Interview: DeliDrop ...85

Interview: Tracezilla ...96

Interview: NatuRem Bioscience ...105

Interview: Agro Business Park ...113

Appendix 3: Coding Schemes ...127

First Coding Scheme ...127

Final Coding Scheme ...128

Appendix 4: Agro Food Park Survey ...130

Appendix 1: Interview Guides

Interview Guide Agro Food Park

Themes Questions/Outline

Administration

•

Thank you for participating

•

A brief outline of the research

•

Confidentiality

•

Rules of the interview (right to not answer questions, length, recorded)

•

Sign of consent form? Is it necessary?

Opening Questions

•

How long have you worked with Agro Food Park?

Have you been here since its foundation?

•

Can you describe for us the role you have and what you do on a daily basis?

•

What is your favorite thing about working at Agro Food Park?

•

What makes Agro Food Park special in your opinion?

In the following, we are interested specifically in the activities, etc. happening at ABP in AFP

Agro Food Park – Big Picture

•

How does Agro Food Park operate?

What is the intention behind Agro Food Park?

Who owns Agro Food Park?

▪

Are there any financial incentives that you need to take into account?

What is Agro Food Park’s goals and what is the outcome that you aim to achieve?

How big do you want to make the park?

•

Why is the Park located in Aarhus?

Possible follow-up question: Are there any benefits with Aarhus compared with, for example, Copenhagen?

•

What makes Agro Food Park different from other Food Parks/Science Parks?

•

Who do you think is your competitor, if any?

•

How do you choose the companies for the park?

What are the criteria for companies to get a place in the park?

Do companies usually approach you or is it

you that approach companies that you

believe would fit in the park?

How high is your retention rate? How many companies have left the park? Are companies encouraged to stay their entire life at Agro Food Park or just for a specific time period?

Agro Food Park – Daily Operations

•

How much is Agro Food Park involved in the daily activities of the companies?

What are you doing? What services do you offer? How do you facilitate…

If not involved: why not?

•

What services do you offer the companies? Are they separated in categories (for start-ups, for food production, for tech, etc.?)

How does the incubator work? How close are the startups to the companies that are outside the incubator? Do they interact?

•

Do incumbents meet regularly?

Do they sit in open co-working spaces? Or where do they interact on a daily basis?

Agro Food Park – M3 Strategy

•

How do you perceive the presence of the university affecting the companies’ product innovation process, does it have any influence?

•

How does being in the incubator affect the

collaborations with firms or other external partners off-park? For example, customers, investors, suppliers, etc.

Collaborations & Open Questions

•

What processes are in place to facilitate the knowledge exchange between the tenants?

•

You say on your website that the companies 70%

collaborate with other companies, is the

collaboration facilitated by the park or how does it usually play out?

Is collaboration usually between smaller and bigger firms? Small and small firms?

etc.

How do you facilitate collaboration? Do you collaborate with external partners such as universities, the region Aarhus, outside companies, etc?

How is their collaboration with

universities? Do the companies collaborate with them directly or is it indirectly

through the park?

Do you work with other external partners except for universities? In that case, who, why and how?

•

You say on your website that you work with Open Innovation, can you elaborate?

How does it work in practice at Agro Food Park?

•

80% of the companies introduced new products or services in 2015, that is an impressive number, why do you believe that is?

•

On your website and the video about the future of Agro Food Park you talk a lot about innovation, how would you define successful innovation?

do you consider ecological and social benefits besides economic benefits successful?

End

•

Thank you for taking part

•

Possibility of follow up questions through phone if

needed at a later point

Interview Guide Tenants of Agro Food Park

Themes Questions/Outline

Administration

•

Thank you for participating

•

A brief outline of the research

•

Confidentiality

•

Rules of the interview (right to not answer questions, length, recorded)

•

Sign of consent form? Is it necessary?

Opening Questions

•

Tell us briefly about your company and the product/service that you offer

•

How old is the company?

•

How many employees do you have?

•

What is your position in the organization and how do you see your role in the firm?

Product Innovation Process

•

Can you please walk us through the process of coming up with new products or

improving/changing existing ones?

What are the different steps of the process from idea creation to having a ready-to-launch product?

▪

In other word, products/services come about (invention) and not the commercial aspect of the

process/bringing it to the market

What inputs do you think that you need to be able to invent a new product/change an existing one?

Where do you acquire these required inputs?

Who is involved in the process, inside and outside of the company, and during what steps are they involved in?

What are the largest challenges with the process? What goes well?

How is the product innovation affected by your firm size? By the characteristics of the product/service that you are

7. Conclusions

7.3. Conclusion

This case study has examined, through interviews and secondary data, how being a part of Agro Food Park affects the product innovation process of its tenants. The aim was to investigate the already proven relationship between Science Parks and innovation (Löfsten

Moreover, firms operating in the food sector have mostly relied on internal resources and capabilities in their innovation processes. This contributed to the low degree of novelty in food product innovations and the high failure rate of new products (Khan et al., 2014).

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