The birth of technoparks as an innovation oriented organizational form: A research in the framework of the co-evolution theory

The aim of this study is primarily to reveal the emergence process of technoparks as an innovation oriented organizational form and accordingly to reveal the dynamics, conditions and actors which are effective in this process with a scope of co-evolution and the features of technoparks as an organizational form. Qualitative method was preferred due to the study's exploratory structure. The data were obtained through document analysis and face to face interviews. Accordingly, an inductive content method was used while analyzing data. In this context, an original model related to the emergence process of technoparks as an innovation oriented organizational form was developed by advisor and student. This model contains institutional logics, trigger factors/conditions, events that cause change in the institutional environment, organizational actors that play a role and interact in this process, catalysts as the mechanisms that accelerate the interaction between these actors, and the proto-form formed as a result of interaction dynamics. According to the results of the research; technoparks, as an innovation oriented organizational form, emerged in a co-evolutionary process and this process started with the transition to the free market economy on January 24, 1980. It was found that the state institutional logic was dominant in the emergence of the form and the state shaped the structure and functioning of the form as an institutional regulatory actor. In addition, it has been reached that METU played a role of institutional entrepreneur, TEKMER's were the catalyst that accelerated the co-evolutionary process and METU Technopark, which had been established before the law, was the proto-form as a result of interaction dynamics.