The elusiveness of business networks—Why do science park firm tenants not collaborate with neighbors?

Abstract

Studies contradict whether collaboration between firm tenants in science parks occurs or not. Fifteen firm tenants were interviewed in the Thailand Science Park, north of Bangkok, to understand why firm tenants do not collaborate. We addressed these current, non-collaborative business practices through the lenses of studies of proximity theories. This inductive qualitative study suggests that the set of extant non-collaborative business practices of these firm tenants prevails despite the close geographical proximity. This study recommends addressing these current, non-collaborative business practices by enhancing first the political and then the business proximities. This study is one of the first solely focusing on non-collaboration in business networks. We suggest studying the results of this research further in disciplines related to various industrial territories.