Business Incubators: Effective Infrastructures or Waste of Public Money? Looking for a Theoretical Framework, Guidelines and Criteria

Abstract

There is a wide literature about business incubators (BIs), especially about successful cases in high tech and knowledge intensive industries. Despite that, there is neither a viable integrative theory of effective business incubation nor clear guidelines about the preconditions for establishing BIs and their management. Such theory and guidelines are urgently needed because there is increasing evidence in the literature that, despite many successful cases and public policies supporting business incubation, most of BIs are not successful at all and serious doubts have emerged about the general effectiveness of business incubation and the advisability of investing public money in it. Based on a systematic literature review of the poor and scattered theoretical knowledge of effective business incubation, general principles are proposed to decide when a BI should be established and what it should do to be effective. The research is limited to non-profit BIs whose main goal is regional economic development as they represent the overwhelming majority of operating BIs.

Factors influencing performance within startup assistance organizations

“…McHugh et al (2013) considers that the location of the SAO has a great impact on its performance. His finding is also supported by Tavoletti (2013), who augments this factor by adding that a correct evaluation of the population and economy level of the region where the SAO is located has a direct impact. McHugh et al (2013) implies also that the SAO longevity impacts its performance, due to high levels of credibility in the market and business environment.…”

“…The research of Tavoletti (2013) completes the review of this timeframe. Among other stated influence factors, his research shows that the selection of stakeholders impacts the quality and performance of the program, implying the need to curate the network around the SAO.…”

“…Research in the time-frame 2011 -2013 (Table 2) shows that, besides importance of factors such participant selection, support services, duration of the program, network opportunities and post-program support (Dalziel, 2012;Chang, 2013;Lall et al, 2013;Tavoletti, 2013), there also other aspects that influence the performance of the SAO. Ross and Byrd (2011) underline the support services factor by stressing out that these have to enable the innovative concepts and products to reach the market under profitable conditions.…”

“…Why some perform and "produce" value adding businesses and some become just co-working spaces are questions risen by both communities (McHugh et al, 2013;Tavoletti, 2013;Theodorakopoulos et al, 2014; Global Best Practices Report on Incubation and Acceleration by Capria Ventures Ventures LLC; Knott & Haguewood, 2016).…”

The impact and effectiveness of entrepreneurship policy

“…Given the range of incubator types Tavoletti (2012) argues that performance evaluation should take account of the different goals of incubators which in turn reflect different stakeholder interests (Ecorys, 2012). Thus the analysis of outcomes and performance necessarily requires different evaluations of effectiveness.…”