THE EMERGENCE OF TECHNOPARKS AS A NEW ORGANIZATIONAL FORM: A STUDY FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF COEVOLUTION

Abstract

This study aims to reveal the emergence of technoparks as a new organizational form, the conditions, and actors effective in this process from the perspective of coevolution. Following the exploratory nature of the research, we preferred a qualitative method and collected the data through document analysis and semi-structured interviews. The findings showed that the technopark form emerged in a coevolutionary process. Moreover, the transition to a free-market economy on January 24 in 1980 is the event that initiated the coevolution process. Then, conditions such as ensuring university-industry collaboration triggered the interaction between the actors in the emergence process of technoparks. Also, we revealed that Technology Development Center was the catalyst that accelerated the process, and METU Technopark, which was established before the law, was a proto form. Furthermore, the government shaped the functioning of the form with the law it enacted. Our study contributes to the literature explaining that in an institutional environment how environmental changes and conditions trigger interactions between actors and how the outcomes of the actors' interaction reveal technoparks as a new organizational form.