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The purpose of this paper is to analyze the performance of incubators in the stages of formation and development of incubated business networks, especially in bottom-up and top-down network models.

The research is defined as qualitative and descriptive, with the application of multiple case studies, in which two networks of incubated businesses were investigated, one being top-down and the other bottom-up, which emerged within the incubation process of two business incubators (CIETEC and INCIT). To make the study operational, 11 semi-structured interviews were carried out and the thematic analysis of content was developed.

The results pointed out that in the top-down network the incubator performs a new assignment, the network orchestration, which corresponds to the actions of formation, coordination and governance of the group. In the bottom-up network, it was found that the role of the incubator was to expand the value offers usually practiced.

As a limitation of the research, the very limitation of case studies is pointed out that is they do not allow for generalizations.

The research contributes to reflections on the effectiveness of the incubator and sheds light on the complementarity of networks in incubation processes, providing gains for incubators, incubated businesses and society.

The originality of this document is the new role of the incubator, which is orchestration, and its categorization. The results allow us to understand the effects of providing networks and relationships for incubated businesses. In addition, this study broadens the focus of traditional analyses of the incubator–incubated duo to consider the incubator–network–incubated trio.

Public libraries are incubators for collective action in the knowledge economy. As three case studies from the United States and Singapore demonstrate, public libraries can serve as influential champions that garner financial resources, communicate an urgent need for change, and respond to the unmet information and economic needs of marginalized individuals and communities. In the Raise Up Radio (RUR) case, public librarians engaged schools, museums, youth, and families in rural communities to develop and deliver STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) content over local radio stations. In collaboration with organizational partners, RUR librarians created a model for library-community-radio projects for the rural United States. In the What Health Looks Like (WHLL) case, public librarians engaged senior citizens in discussions of health and the creation of health comics. In partnership with an interdisciplinary health research team, WHLL librarians developed a pilot for library-community-public health projects aimed at information dissemination and health narrative generation. In the Singapore shopping mall libraries case, the National Library Board (NLB) created public libraries in commercial spaces serving working families, senior citizens, and the Chinese community. The NLB developed an exportable model for locating information centers in convenient, popular, and useful business spaces. These case studies demonstrate how libraries are nodes in the knowledge economy, providing vital services such as preservation of cultural heritage, technology education, community outreach, information access, and services to working families, small- and medium-size businesses, and other patrons. In the years to come, public libraries will be called upon to respond to shifting social norms, inequitable opportunities, emergencies and disasters, and information asymmetries. As the cases of RUR, WHLL, and the shopping mall libraries show, public librarians have the vision and capacities to serve as influential champions for collective action to solve complex problems and foster sustainable development and equitable participation in the knowledge economy.

The purpose of this paper is to explain how human resource (HR) managers of incubators can be more effective by applying Relationship focused theory, wherein the HR managers consider the forms of relationships among entrepreneurs. For helping create successful startups, HR managers of incubators can analyze and govern the practice of entrepreneurial action using a relationship-focused (rather than an individual-focused) approach.

A fourfold typology of relationships is used to explain the utility of relationships for practicing entrepreneurial work in an incubator. HR managers of incubators should consider the forms of relationships among the entrepreneurs that they oversee within incubators.

Social and task antecedents determine the ideal relationship between budding entrepreneurs, and incubator climate restrains the link between relationships and entrepreneurial outcomes.

Relationship-focused theory is used to explain the manner in which entrepreneurial action can be organized among budding entrepreneurs within incubators. The focus stays on the ‘relationship’ between budding entrepreneurs housed within incubators.

The purpose of this paper is to understand a typology of eco-innovation that best characterizes an innovation incubator, with the aim of strengthening the management of this habitat to leverage the development of new eco-innovation technologies.

The typologies of 22 studies identified in the Web of Science, Scopus, Scielo and Science Direct databases were analyzed through a theoretical and descriptive study and method of systematic literature review. In the typologies analyzed, none were found that fit directly into the environment of an innovation incubator.

The most detailed typology, by Fernando et al. (2015), is characterized as a type of eco-innovation developed in a specific market, but it does not address the characteristics of this innovation habitat, which is the incubator.

Thus, based on the typologies presented, this paper demonstrates the construction of an instrument that contemplates the authors analyzed, with emphasis on its application in incubators.

This paper demonstrates the construction of an instrument that contemplates the authors analyzed, with emphasis on the application in incubators.

In a world where sustainability is a major aim at all socioeconomic levels, social entrepreneurship plays an important role in achieving the goals that have been set. The purpose of this study is to broaden the knowledge of social start-ups, social incubators and founding teams, highlighting the value of each one. The aim is to use quantitative analysis to determine the possible link between social incubators and social start-up success and identify the founding team profile of social start-ups from each sector according to a sector-based ranking.

Bootstrap data envelopment analysis (DEA) was used to calculate the efficiency of social incubators and social start-ups and thus quantify the impact, in terms of increased efficiency, of social incubators on social start-ups. Then, using cross-efficiency methodology, a synthetic index was used to analyse the founding team profile of social start-ups. The study is based on primary data from a survey of Spanish social incubators and social start-ups.

The study provides strong quantitative evidence of the positive effect of social incubators on the development of social start-ups. The size of this effect exceeds the know-how of start-ups. In terms of efficiency gains, this research quantifies the impact of social incubators on this entrepreneurial ecosystem. This impact exceeds 35%. The study also shows that the strongest social start-ups are in the food and information and communication technology (ICT) sectors. The founding teams in these cases have a strong business background, have a high educational level, receive subsidies and express a desire to retain control of the company.

There is an extensive literature dedicated to the analysis of the behaviour and characteristics of traditional incubators, accelerators and start-ups. However, despite the recent rise of social entrepreneurship, studies of social incubators and social start-ups remain scarce. This study provides two novel findings. (1) It shows the importance of creating a social start-up in a context where it receives support throughout all its development stages, providing quantitative insight into the contribution of social incubators and social start-ups. (2) It reveals the profile of founding teams in the highest-ranked business sectors.

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.

The paper aims to review existing performance indicators in technology business incubators (TBIs) and propose some new indicators with a focus on incubation activities in higher educational institutes (HEIs) of India.

Performance indicators of various types of incubators were identified from research papers followed by interview, consultation and suggestion from experts of the subject. Nature of interrelationship between the identified indicators has been established with the help of Interpretive Structural Modelling methodology and Matrice d’impacts croisés multiplication appliquée á un classment analysis.

Number of ideas came for screening and number of ideas converted to start-ups, survival rate of incubatees is the indicators which have the highest driving power followed by time taken in screening an idea and number of failed or rejected ideas returned back into incubation. Few indicators (driving indicators) are affecting performance of other indicators as well.

Some performance indicators are proposed which can be used for measuring performance of technology incubators in India. The actual implications will be known when these findings are used to assess performance of some technology incubator. This also is the limitation of the study that some cases can be included to validate the findings of this research.

A total of 15 performance indicators for measuring performance of TBIs in Indian HEIs have been proposed. The proposed indicators will help incubator management to prioritize the efforts and resource allocation.

TBIs are looked upon as mechanism for promoting entrepreneurial culture in Indian HEIs. Their success is well linked to growth of society. This research will help technology incubators to identify the most important factors in incubation process. Performance improvement will directly affect society in whole. Culture of IEE (Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Employment ) can be achieved through technology incubators

Identification of new indicators for performance measurement of incubators in Indian HEIs is the novelty of this research. This has a lot of value due to multilevel hierarchy model.

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.

This research aims at analyzing the antecedents of absorptive capacity (ACAP) in the companies incubated in the State of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. In this context, 111 incubated companies took part in the research.

The methodology used the confirmatory factor analysis and the multiple linear regression to analyze the relationship of the dependent variables (ACAP) with the dependent variables (interaction with other companies, professionals' knowledge (PK), knowledge use (KU) and knowledge acquisition).

The results highlight that external KU was the construct that most influences the ACAP. Among the dependent variables suggested, only the construct concerning the incubators' PK presented no model significance, which shows that the PK is not an antecedent of ACAP in the incubated companies.

This study is relevant due to pointing out that the incubators may not be providing their professionals with knowledge properly, or that this knowledge is not being accessed by the incubated companies, which allows actions turned to encouraging businesses in this context.

The aim of this paper is to contribute to understanding of the process of innovation in the biotechnology companies operating in Brazil. The paper identifies the most critical factors in the innovation process of the enterprises in this sector; the paper then analyses the dynamics of the sector and the contribution of the universities and incubators to the innovation process and also evaluates how these elements affect the management process of the technological innovation within and outside the organization.

The research was of the qualitative exploratory type and involved seven case studies of biotechnology companies of different sizes, acting in various sectors, having undergone or not an incubation process. For interpretation of the results, content analysis was utilized.

The study indicated that, among the many obstacles to innovation, access to finance is the most critical. Partnerships have been adversely affected due to institutional and regulatory factors, namely a lack of clear laws and rules regarding intellectual property. The companies have sought to compensate by making their internal processes agile, creating flexible organizational structures and an organizational environment favourable to innovation, which is internalized, as a practice, in a tacit manner.

Limitations are associated with the case study methodology: the results presented pertain to the companies studied, and, therefore, cannot be generalized or extended to other companies or areas.

The management process of innovation occurs in an informal and less than systematic manner. The innovation process in Brazilian biotechnology companies benefits from a pro‐active posture adopted by them to manage and learn from adversity.

The paper increases understanding of the innovation process in Brazilian biotechnology companies.