posted on 2024-07-13, 05:47authored byHermina H. M. Burnett
Incubators assist new businesses to grow by providing start-up entrepreneurs with physical and/or internet space, access to shared equipment, administrative services and business assistance programs. This qualitative research study explored management and stakeholder practices in business incubators to gain deeper insights about the motivations and objectives of incubator sponsors and the clients-entrepreneurs served by the incubator manager. The thesis is centred on two major research questions: 1. What are the challenges of the not-for-profit incubator manager, split between the social objectives of the sponsors and the need to run the incubator as a selfsustaining entrepreneurial business oriented organisation? 2. What are the parameters for optimum sponsorship and funding of Australian notfor- profit incubators? These questions, divided into a number of sub-questions, were investigated in ten incubators during two research phases with data collected over a period of two and a half years from forty six incubator tenants, four Australian incubator managers and six managers of incubators and incubator programs in Portugal, the UK and the Netherlands. The data sets were coded and analysed following grounded theory principles primarily using NVivo®7 software in which the data was subjected to open, axial and selective coding processes. The findings showed that there was a direct link between the sponsor's strategic orientation whether for-profit and not-for-profit and the effectiveness and organisational performance of the incubator manager and thus the incubator as a whole. The findings further indicated that despite inadequate finance, lack of profit making tools, autonomy and training to optimise success, not-for-profit incubator managers almost single-handedly contributed to the successful performance of the incubators because of their high levels of social capital and entrepreneurial orientation styles. Based on these findings, a new conceptual model was developed in order to determine the parameters for the funding of not-for-profit incubators that would facilitate both its financial success and its socio-economic mission. Following the dialectic system of requisite holism and critical realism perspectives (Neergaard, 1999; Rebernik and Mulej, 2000) which views incubators as part of a complex social system, a new conceptual model was developed depicting relationshipbased traits and activities recognised as socio-economic tools that have an impact on business performance and success in Australian and international incubators.
History
Thesis type
Thesis (PhD)
Thesis note
A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy, Swinburne University of Technology, 2009.