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Women entrepreneurs face gender‐specific barriers surrounding access to: networks of information, assistance, finance and investment funds, in addition to socio‐cultural barriers. Business incubation literature indicates the supports provided to tenant incubator companies (including: assistance from incubation managers, access to academic institutions and facilities and access to contact networks), generally increase survival rates and can accelerate growth in turnover, employment levels and export sales. Business incubators could, therefore, offer an ideal environment for women entrepreneurs to overcome many gender‐related barriers. The Irish Government has invested, via “Enterprise Ireland”, over €46 million in campus‐incubators but the gender composition of incubation tenants accessing this state funding has not been explored.

A study of all “Enterprise Ireland” funded campus‐incubators in Ireland was undertaken between November 2006 and March 2007. A survey of 100 per cent of centre managers explored their background, demands on time, the contact networks and relationships with the academic host in each centre and services provided. For cross‐referencing purposes, some tenants and prospective tenants were also surveyed in relation to tenant expectations and service delivery; the culture of incubation centres; incubation centres' policies are: tenant recruitment and selection.

This paper highlights the under‐representation of women‐owned businesses in Ireland's campus incubation centres.

These findings highlight key areas requiring attention from researchers, policy makers and incubation managers to facilitate best practice.

This paper contributes to current knowledge as there has, to date, been no comprehensive study or evaluation of gender equality, or suitability of services provided, in campus‐incubators.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the factors affecting startup development and the entrepreneurship ecosystem's contribution to it.

A quantitative methodology is used for data collection from different startup owners working across Pakistan. It is a cross-sectional descriptive study, which investigates the causal effect of variables at a definite point in time. Non-probability convenient sampling was used for selecting available startups from the incubation centers. The sampling framework consists of the founders of the startups that have been previously incubated at any of the selected incubation centers.

Regression analysis results from 165 responses of entrepreneurs and incubation centers demonstrate that the most important factors affecting startup development were financial access, government support, marketing challenges, education, technology and managerial skills in order of occurrence. Entrepreneurship ecosystem also proved to have a very positive impact on the relationship of these factors with startup development.

In this paper, the factors that affect the development of startup are analyzed and recommendations are provided.

This research is comprehensive, as we have collected data from actual entrepreneurs and incubation centers to explain how entrepreneurs initiate their startup business by considering their managerial skills. As such, this study is unique in that the data comes from newly developed incubations centers in one of South Asia's fastest-growing economies.

The purpose of this paper is to examine innovative practices and emphasize the mechanism of knowledge transfer across knowledge boundaries. By comparing and discussing the emerging boundary issues in knowledge transfer among small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) registered in the incubation centers in China, this paper identified the main knowledge transfer approach and several contextual and organizational factors impacting knowledge transfer.

The authors conduct 39 semi-structured in-depth interviews with employees working within business incubation centers in China. The study uses thematic analysis for data analysis.

Our results contribute to the literature of knowledge transfer and in particular to our understanding of boundary conditions and knowledge transfer approaches in emerging economies. The results also highlight several contextual and organizational factors which impact knowledge transformation across the pragmatic boundary in the context of China.

First, organizations need to establish an effective process with tools to accommodate novelty; second, organizations should be aware of the impact of entrepreneurial orientation on innovative performance; and third, it will help organizations if they adopt and integrate information-rich media in managing innovative practices.

This research highlights the impact of contextual and organizational factors of SMEs on knowledge transfer in emerging markets and chooses incubation centers as study subjects, which is an organizational context that has not been thoroughly studied due to its unique nature and emerging complexity.

Purpose: To identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of business incubator models and their potential use in worldwide. Methodology: We studied two international cases: (a) United States, (b) United Kingdom. Findings: The results highlight the similarities and differences between the countries. It adds knowledge for both academics and practitioners who are interested in business incubation. Value: This paper is the first to utilize the SWOT technique to analyze the business incubation field and provides recommendations to implement successful adoption of the incubator’s strengths. The potential of Business Incubators who act as models in worldwide and their contribution to the economy, the active role they play in the local, regional and national economic development are discussed. Implications: Adaptation of a Business Incubator Model leads to (1) the support of diverse economies, (2) the commercialization of new technologies, (3) job creation and (4) increases in wealth, given that weaknesses can be overcome.

This chapter places previous incubator-incubation literature within a relevant geographic and policy context, and extracts the reasons for the wide-scale adoption of the incubator model as a new venture creation mechanism. Arguments developed highlight that in the flurry of political lobbying during the 1990s–2000s leading to the rapid expansion of incubators-incubation across the European Union (EU), policy makers, practitioners and researchers alike failed to focus on what is key to understanding incubators’ true impact — internal incubation processes. A review of incubator development and impact at the level of two EU member states, Germany and Italy, is presented. This allows for a clearer context-bound sense of the state-of-art in incubator-incubation research to emerge. In turn it becomes possible to clearly highlight the direction of further research in the area where there is a stalemate between two opposing camps — one which has produced evidence to suggest that incubators make a significant difference in reducing start-up risk, and the other, which believes incubators do not give tax payers value-for-money. Structured in this way, this chapter is able to draw attention to the essential ‘missing ingredient’ in previous research which is key to understanding the impact incubators can have. This ingredient is the dynamics of the internal process of incubation.

This paper presents a conceptual framework based on a literature review and the findings from an empirical study using data collected from entrepreneurs (business incubatees) over a 15-year period (2004–2019). This paper aim is to discuss and propose areas to consider when (re)designing business incubation.

The data set is based on the experiences of five different cohorts (n = 100), each of which spent 18–24 months participating in a start-up programme sponsored by a business incubation centre (BIC) located in Ireland. To add further depth and nuance to this paper’s findings, an expert focus group was undertaken.

The findings highlight the importance of different activities and skills in a BIC over time and recommend the inclusion of a number of activities in a BIC framework. The activities include continued professional development (CPD), action research, participation in a simulation, development of emotional intelligence, leadership skills and mindset and critical reflection.

This paper presents an appropriate conceptual framework for the (re)design of business incubation. The framework facilitates an improved understanding of the evolution of entrepreneurial activities and outcomes associated with engagement with a BIC.

BIC 4.0, as described in this paper, proposes success as multi-faceted and including space, facilities, networks, mentors, professional development, reflective practice, emotional development and engagement with continuous professional development.

This paper discusses the services and support from one of the government design-based business incubators in Hong Kong. The characteristics of a design business incubator are explained, and a multiple-case study indicates the perspectives of incubatees from different design disciplines after their graduation from the incubation programme.

The research under discussion in this paper was based on eight design incubatees in different design disciplines within two years of incubation period, all of whom had participated in one of the government-funded business incubation programmes for designers in Hong Kong. The programme is unique because there are no other government-based incubation programmes for designers in Hong Kong. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect feedback from incubatees in areas ranging from terms of service to support of the incubation programme.

The services of training, mentorship and finance were found to be the most important to design start-ups. Financial support and flexible funding allocation were another important issue for design incubatees, but training in these subject areas was not included in the incubation programme. However, it was confirmed that funding provided may have helped a number of the incubatees in developing their start-up businesses as a result of the reduced financial burden and office allocation.

The research focused on one incubation programme because of the lack of incubation programmes for designers in Hong Kong, therefore future research which compares different types of business incubation programmes is suggested.

The outcomes of the research not only identified the possible areas of development and improvement of business incubation in entrepreneurship but they will also be useful for the government, universities, institutions, designers, policy makers, entrepreneurs and practitioners. These, in addition to industry stakeholders who want to evaluate their entrepreneurship programmes and develop their plans for potential development in incubation- or entrepreneurial-related programmes or training, especially in the area of design, will find the results useful.

This article aims to conduct a bibliometric study using structural and relational approaches amongst the extracted documents and investigates the connections between business incubation and entrepreneurship-related papers to describe the field comprehensively.

A total of 259 articles have been retrieved from Scopus database in order to conduct the bibliometric analysis. Performance analysis and science mapping techniques of bibliometrics have been used along with data visualisation software, i.e. VOSviewer and RStudio. The network collaboration and intellectual structures, i.e. bibliographic coupling, co-occurrence analysis, word cloud and trending topics, have been presented to identify the field’s latest trends, themes and development.

The findings highlight annual publication trends, including the most frequently cited articles, the most productive authors, countries and highly influential journals that contribute the most to the said field. The intellectual structures have been developed to identify research themes and trends by running co-occurrence analysis and bibliographic coupling. The findings of this study emphasize the value of technology transfer, mentorship programmes, entrepreneurship education and an emphasis on innovation and creativity through entrepreneurial universities and academia. These findings provide policymakers and administrative officials with crucial guidance for fortifying the pillars of entrepreneurship and education for the comprehensive development of the economy. Further, this article attempts to identify the most influential and relevant publications as well as the newest trends in the area of business incubation in combination with entrepreneurship.

The article contributes not only to broaden the scope of knowledge on the said research discipline but also to comprehend how the field has evolved over a period of time. This study also attracts the interest of scholars/academicians, leading to the significant production of scholarly documents in business incubation and entrepreneurship.

The field of entrepreneurship and business incubation is one of the important pillars for the growth and development of the economy. This piece contributes to this arena by focusing on the areas that must be taken care of by developing the entrepreneurial ecosystem and fostering the progress of startups. The fundamentals of this research highlight the importance of mentorship programs, entrepreneurship education, technology transfer and a focus on innovation and creativity through entrepreneurial education and efforts by universities/academia, giving an important direction to the policymakers and administration for strengthening the pillar of entrepreneurship and education for the holistic development of the economy.

Business incubation is an emerging field of academic research connected to startups, venture formation and entrepreneurship ecosystems, making it a potential scholarly discipline. This study presents a thorough bibliometric analysis over the last three decades, offering comprehensive details on the most significant developments in the field of business incubation. Moreover, the various analytical methods applied to this study make it more attractive.

The purpose of this paper is to provide the initial evidence on the role of business incubation (BI) in supporting startups and BI practices from developing communities in Uganda.

This study is cross-sectional and a triangulation of quantitative and qualitative data were used. Data were collected by means of a questionnaire and an interview guide from 28 incubators.

Results indicate that business incubators play different roles in communities such as business assistance, networking, provision of necessary infrastructure and provision of an enabling environment. Furthermore, BI practices were identified such as networking, human resource, tenant management and assessment practices.

This study was cross-sectional and thus monitoring changes in behavior of incubatees overtime was not possible. The study was conducted in Uganda, and it is possible that the results of this study can be generalized to developing communities with environments similar to that of Uganda.

The results are important for business incubators in improving the sustainability of startups in Uganda. The study will enable business incubators to understand their role and incubator practices in as far as supporting small and medium-sized enterprises is concerned.

While there have been a number of studies on BI, this study provides an initial empirical evidence on the role of BI and BI practices using evidence from developing communities in Uganda.

The purpose of this paper is to preliminary attempt to deal with the phenomenon of business incubation from the industrial network perspective (Hakansson et al., 2009). The study draws on the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) insights on new business formation and development in business networks as a starting point to shed light on the incubator–incubatee relationship content and development to see how this specific relationship influences the development process of a mid-stage business venture. The author believes that the IMP tradition – with its focus on interactions in business relationships – can positively contribute to implementing this neglected topic of incubation research.

The paper develops a longitudinal case study describing a mid-stage start-up venture initiating and developing a business relationship with a private business incubator. The relationship is explored through an abductive research design grounded in the IMP ARA model of analysis. The investigation focuses on how the incubation process unfolds through resources’ and actors’ interactions at different scales of analysis: the focal dyad, the incubation internal environment and the surrounding network. Particular “contextual” emphasis is put on new venture’s prior relationships. The study reveals three main findings.

Business incubation results as an emergent, and interdependent, process of interaction that develops among the incubator, the incubatee and external networked actors. In this perspective, the paper aims to re-discuss the role of the incubator in the process of forming and developing a new company considering its minor role in the wider developmental setting surrounding the incubatee.

The paper introduces IMP concepts to business incubation debates, which can positively challenge and provide novel explanations about the recurring gaps of the literature. Further research should provide more detail on the role and functioning of interactive incubation in a business network context, addressing complex topics such as incubation performance and outcomes. Further research should also deepen and discuss the role of incubation relationships within the set of initial relationships of a new venture.

This analysis can be used to revise the general approach to the management and configuration of business incubators. Present insights could be helpful, in fact, to design more effective incubation offerings and models, as well as develop best managerial practices targeted at interacting with new venture especially in the resource dimension, both within and outside the incubation environment.

The incubation dyad, as a unit of analysis, has been scarcely addressed in incubation research. This is central for addressing the role of interactions, relationships and networks in incubation, all elements which have been too scarcely investigated. In addition, the paper deals with a private business incubator, a particular model which is in need for more research. Finally, the case of an established new venture which decides to enter a business incubator at a later stage of its development represents a peculiar case which does not fit classical research typically focused on new ventures “born and raised” entirely in incubation.