A control group study of incubators’ impact to promote firm survival

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. It is widely unclear as to whether start-up firms supported by publicly-initiated incubator initiatives have higher survival rates than comparable start-up firms that have not received support by such initiatives. This paper contributes to the underlying discussion by performing an empirical analysis of the long-term survival of 371 incubator firms (after their graduation) from five German incubators and contrasting these results with the long-term survival of a control group of 371 comparable non-incubated firms. The analysis covers a 10-year time span. To account for the problem of selection bias, a nonparametric matching approach is applied to identify an appropriate control group. For neither of the five incubator locations we find statistically significant higher survival probabilities for firms located in incubators compared to firms located outside those incubator organizations. For three incubator locations the analysis even reveals statistically significant lower chances of survival for those start-ups having received support by an incubator. We therefore arrive at the conclusion that being located in an incubatorcontrasting the widespread rhetoric of policy actors and incubator stakeholders -does not increase the chances of long-term business survival. Terms of use: Documents in

Business incubators and accelerators: a co-citation analysis-based, systematic literature review

“…In particular, they show that incubators have a significantly positive effect on the firm's number of employees and that incubated firms receive five times as many business services as their non-incubated cohort. Schwartz (2013) concentrates on long-term business survival tracking a sample of firms within a publicly initiated incubator over a period of 10 years and comparing their performance to a control group of comparable startups that did not receive support from an incubator. However, results do not indicate that firms located in incubators have higher chances of long-term business survival than comparable firms located outside incubators do.…”

Pós-incubação de empresas de base tecnológica: um estudo de caso sobre o efeito da incubadora nos padrões de crescimento

“…According to Schwartz (2009), the extent to which these support mechanisms work together is of fundamental importance to the survival and growth of incubated firms after graduation. However, it should be noted that there are usually discrepancies among key resources, which are crucial to the viability of the firm and its actual resource base, as pointed out by Schwartz (2013).…”

“…Neglecting these factors -as well as discrepancies among resources that are crucial to the viability of the business and its actual resource base, as highlighted in Schwartz (2013) -can jeopardize sustainable business growth and success after graduation.…”

Informal Construction Practices as Knowledge Incubators: A Conceptual Framework

“…Such administrative and support services include reception, clerical services, meeting rooms, conference rooms, car parking (McAdam & McAdam, 2008) or energy, water, telecommunications, accounting services, technical editing help, computer equipment, and cleaning (Roseira, Ramos, Maia, & Henneberg, 2014;Bruneel, Ratinho, Clarysse, & Groen, 2012;Winger, 2000). Incubators have also been on the forefront in providing financial resources and individually tailored business support services (European Court of Auditors, 2014;Benjamins, 2009;Carayannis & Von Zedtwitz, 2005;Schwartz Business and Economic Research ISSN 2162-4860 2018 &Hornych, 2010; Sofouli & Vonortas, 2007;Winger, 2000).Some organizations consider themselves as business incubation centres simply because they offer counselling or pooled purchasing for newly established companies/entrepreneurs despite offering no physical office space (Jøgenson, 2014;Roseira, Ramos, Maia, & Henneberg, 2014).…”

“…Technologically, incubator covers physical or virtue spaces upon which newly discovered technology is nurtured before being transferred to industries for commercial application and in terms of entrepreneurship, the term business incubator is generally used in relation to nurturing entrepreneurial skills whether in physical or virtue spaces or otherwise. Business incubators therefore, describe a wide range of ubiquitous and heterogeneous institutions that operate in different contexts and with diverse objectives (Scillitoe & Chakrabarti, 2010;Bergek & Norrman, 2008;Schwartz, 2013).…”