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The aim of this study was to discuss the historical evolution of business incubators from 1959 to the present. Three cohort periods were defined: 1959-1979, 1980-1999 and 2000-2012. The business characteristics of corporate mission, plans and strategies, leadership/management, staff competence and expertise, facilities and resources and technology were described for each generation.

The approach of this research was to gain an understanding of potential best practices and study what has been characteristically significant in small business incubators over the past 50 years.

The historical study findings indicate that the basic premise of business incubators remained unchanged across time. The idea of nurturing a new and fledgling business until it can manage on its own, much like an incubator does for premature and newborn babies, still provides the impetus for business incubators today. However, business characteristics have evolved and grown more sophisticated over the years in response to situational and contextual forces. Certain characteristics have been retained, while others have undergone change.

In light of the discussion in this research, it is clear that comprehensive and systematic historical review from literature on small business incubators reveals that past incubators have provided many lessons for future models. The model has evolved dramatically but questions still revolve around the current state, and what is essential for future models.

Although various models have been developed to explain the trajectories of such growth, it is clear that access to a network of business and financial forms of support, patented knowledge creation, and inter-firm partnerships are crucial.

The value of this research is it defines three periods in small business incubator history in the USA defining what are consistent best practices for success. In addition, this research concerning small business incubators serves as a clear comprehensive and systematic historical review from literature revealing that past incubators have provided many lessons for future models.

This chapter examines the processes of entrepreneurial network and capital formation at a university-based incubator. Incubators could help overcome start-up firms to gain access to entrepreneurial networks and credibility with external stakeholders, by supporting the entrepreneurial processes including the acquisition of variety of capitals and resources. However, the actual evidence on the effectiveness of incubators as a policy tool for business support has been rather contested. This chapter makes a contribution to the entrepreneurship literature by addressing the underlying processes of incubation as a key factor critical to achieve accelerated firm growth at the university-based technology incubator. Drawing on interviews and survey of start-up firms at a university-based incubator, co-evolution of business models with capital mobilisation and re-combination of resources is illustrated. The chapter concludes by arguing that more detailed processes and trajectories of ‘soft starter’ business model would contribute to the understanding and development of policy support for entrepreneurial processes.

The world is currently facing one of the most significant refugee crises in history, posing challenges to policymakers in host countries needing to facilitate socio-economic integration of refugees urgently. Policymakers and scholars have started shedding light on the entrepreneurial potential of refugees. Refugees confront considerable institutional barriers in their new environments. Particularly challenging is that they lose connection to their home country ecosystem through forced displacement and are not yet well-embedded in the local entrepreneurial ecosystem of the host country. The disconnection to the local ecosystem hinders refugees from accessing various resources essential to entrepreneurial activities. Against this background, this chapter illuminates the role of business incubators in integrating refugee entrepreneurs into the local entrepreneurial ecosystem, paying particular attention to relational dynamics within incubators. This study conducts explorative qualitative research with a single case study of a German business incubator for refugees. This study identifies three types of relational dynamics that characterise operation of refugee business incubators and two mechanisms constructive and descriptive to their mission. Finally, this study derives practical implications for refugee business incubators and policymakers in refugee-hosting countries.

Institutional support at local, state, and national levels, including the services offered by business incubators, impacts women entrepreneurs’ venture creation and success. Yet, our understanding about the influence of an incubator’s attributes on women entrepreneurship remains limited. In this chapter, we develop a framework to analyze how incubator attributes encourage women’s entrepreneurship in the USA. We begin by discussing how homophily and signaling theories can help us understand whether incubators are using inclusive practices. Then, we draw a sample of 30 Impact Award winners from the International Business Incubation Association (InBIA), a global association of incubators, and we use three sources of data for our analysis and conclusions: incubator features and demographics, mission statements, and media coverage from Nexis Uni. Based on our findings, we find low levels of gender inclusive practices among the most impactful business incubators. We conclude by offering suggested practices to make business incubators more inclusive of women entrepreneurs.

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize business incubators and their support for entrepreneurial refugees. While the number of initiatives supporting refugees’ entrepreneurial activities has increased in recent years, we still know little about how they differ from other types of business incubators.

This case study investigates a business incubator in Hamburg, Germany, targeting enterprising refugees. For this paper, 14 in-depth interviews with program participants and incubation managers were conducted.

This paper inductively derives five functional domains of refugee business incubators: providing structured entrepreneurial knowledge; alleviating anxiety related to institutional differences; guiding through the process at the incubator and motivating participants; understanding and tapping into social capital in the host country; and providing soft support concerning personal matters. The findings show that business incubators could and possibly should address specific needs of refugees and that there is much room for improvement. This study suggests that the five domains listed above represent key characteristics that distinguish refugee business incubators from traditional business incubators.

This paper offers valuable practical insights for refugee business incubators, which need to consider and develop functional domains listed above. Because these kinds of incubators are a fairly recent phenomenon, there is a general lack of and need for blueprints. The findings of this paper suggest that business incubators could integrate and support entrepreneurial refugees provided that they consider the five functional domains identified here. The findings also provide evidence that entrepreneurship can be a possible means of vocational integration for refugees and one way of institutions and policy-makers in host country seeking to support refugees’ entrepreneurial activities, for example, by developing or subsidizing business incubators targeting refugees.

This paper’s contributions are twofold. First, this paper addresses a gap in the literature on refugee entrepreneurship by providing insights concerning the important role of support institutions. Second, this paper conceptualizes business incubators for enterprising refugees as a distinctive type of business incubators. This paper has, however, some limitations. Because it only considered a relatively small number of refugee entrepreneurs, it is difficult to generalize the findings. The cross-cultural setting of the empirical study, with its potential for linguistic and cultural misunderstandings, may have affected the results.

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 study explores the different learning practices of Chinese incubators in Chongqing and Chengdu and delves into how these “learning huddles” influence incubatees' absorptive capacity (the ability to apply knowledge) to improve their chance of success (sustainable growth).

This explorative study uses a qualitative case study approach by means of semi-structured interviews with business incubation managers and incubatees across three business incubators in Chengdu and Chongqing. The data are transcribed, coded and analyzed using an analytic map for the explanation of building and reflecting on the theoretical propositions, leading to a further understanding of the “learning huddle” mechanism.

The study finds that incubatees perceive that their absorptive capacity is increased through vicarious informal learning practices that promote access to networks and thereby builds social capital to improve their likelihood of success.

This study has limitations in sample size and design. The explorative case study approach uses a nonrandom case selection of three incubators in Chongqing and Chengdu and has a limited number of interviewees, which may lack representation of the general Chinese business incubation population and may not sufficiently be generalized beyond the sample itself.

These findings have important implications for business incubation programs. Business incubators that build learning huddles (networks) create a nurturing shared learning environment, which is suitable for incubatees to collectively absorb knowledge at the early stage of their life cycle and improve their likelihood of sustainable growth.

Since this study is limited to a Chinese context, it is also hoped that future researchers use the typology of business incubator learning practices to explore cross-culture variables, as these may influence the business incubation operations and performance.

This study adds to the discussion on how collective learning practices facilitate absorptive capacity and build social capital, which in turn improves incubatees' chance of sustainable growth and as such the authors hope that the learning practice's typology and how incubatees determine their success stimulates further research for measuring the likelihood of incubatees sustainable growth.

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 produce a business incubator training model for students to form graduates in order to have competence in the field of entrepreneurship in an effort to reduce high unemployment.

The method used in this study was research and development (R&D) that consisted of the following five stages: first, planning based on the result of initial observation in the field, second, development of training model, third, validity test model, fourth, limited test and fifth, final model determination. This research used and involved 12 beauty successful beauty salon entrepreneurs as validator models of business incubator training management.

The test results show that the training model developed is effective in forming entrepreneurship competence of graduates, so it is feasible to be applied in Beauty Education Study Program, Engineering Faculty of Universitas Negeri Semarang.

The resulted model can be used as a learning model that can develop the skill of entrepreneurship level for students.

This study provides contribution to the unemployment level decrease and employment acceleration.

Recent years have seen a wave of immigration in western countries. Entrepreneurship can foster refugees’ integration in the labour market. Hence, the authors observe an emergence of incubators with social purpose, addressing the key challenges of refugee entrepreneurs. The purpose of this paper is to look at the particularities and the impact of business incubation on entrepreneurial development and embeddedness of refugee entrepreneurs in the host country by applying the theoretical lens of mixed embeddedness theory.

This paper is based on a qualitative case study approach exploring one business incubation model for refugee entrepreneurs in Germany. For a multi-stakeholder perspective, the data were collected through a participatory focus group workshop and semi-structured interviews of refugee entrepreneurs and incubator stakeholders (e.g. incubator management, mentors and partners) contributing to the incubation. The data collection extends over the duration of five months of the incubation programme.

The empirical results emphasise the impact of the business incubator on refugee entrepreneur’s development and embeddedness. In this analysis, the authors identify key themes of a particular incubation process addressing the lack of embeddedness and barriers to refugee entrepreneurs in the host country. From the results, the authors elaborate a particular business incubation process framework of refugee entrepreneurs.

The findings enhance the understanding how business incubation contributes to the embeddedness of refugee entrepreneurs in their new hosting environment. Thus, this research contributes to the existing literature by extending incubation model frameworks towards refugee entrepreneurship and embeddedness perspectives. Furthermore, the study emphasises the role of the incubator in the context of the dimensions of the mixed embeddedness of the refugee entrepreneurs.