The social profitability of business incubators: a measurement proposal

Abstract

Public business incubators are services placed at the disposal of original, generally newly-created projects, to which physical accompaniment, supervision, and location are offered at prices below market value. They have as their aim to help set in motion and consolidate these firms during the stages in which they are weaker. The ultimate goal consists in favouring the generation of innovative firms, inducers of high-quality jobs, which can diversify the local business fabric, thus becoming a key tool in local development.The present paper provides a methodology to study the economic -but above all social-impact of business incubators, based on the examination of 40 from the 42 incubators existing in the Valencian Community (a Spanish autonomous region with five million inhabitants). Data analysis allows us to state that, although business incubators are not economically profitable since they need financial aids and public investment to start operating, they do have social profitability, insofar as the activity developed by entrepreneurs permits to provide public administrations -via taxes-with returns exceeding what was invested in these incubators. It has been determined that 2.8 euros (which can be applied to a variety of social areas) are collected via taxes for each euro spent to start them up.

Managing technological uncertainty in science incubation: a prospective sensemaking perspective

“…Indeed, SBC was co‐funded by a big‐pharma company, a charity, and government, and thus needed to not only respond to the demands of these stakeholders, but also remain attuned to its positioning as an ‘incubator of choice’ for leading scientists. Incubators often combine the interests of private business with contributions to the public good (Nicolopoulou et al, ; Sentana et al, ). The SBC case demonstrates two instances in which prospective sensemaking resulted in a legitimacy maintaining repositioning.…”

New strategies to measure and strengthen the social role of business incubators: their application to a Spanish region

“…Hence why the load of structural costs is far lower in business incubators, which only own office buildings or a few industrial premises. To which must be added that industrial estates or technological parks pursue other goals due to their justification as local development instruments (Sentana et al, 2017).…”

Cooperation and Innovation as a Key Success Factors for Development in Regions

“…At this level, the tasks are again connected with research and development activities, urbanized areas, industrial specialization, knowledge production, access to venture capital and finance. this level is essential to serve as a 'filter' for tasks that an individual or group of people at an individual level cannot do without collaboration with other institutional-level bodies (Sentana, Gonzalez, Gasco, Llopis, 2017). these institutions have a key role to play in regional development and cooperation in the region.…”