The relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and speed to the market: The case of incubator firms in Norway

Incubators and incubator firms work to promote the development and commercialization of technology and products. This study shows that entrepreneurial orientation can help achieve this aim. Using survey data from incubator firms, we show that entrepreneurial orientation has a statistically significant positive effect on ability to bring technology and products quickly to the market. This finding is important for managers of incubator firms and managers of incubators alike as they have a common interest in speed to the market. An implication of our study is that managers of incubators should try to enhance the entrepreneurial orientation of the incubator firms.     

Knowledge acquisition processes during the incubation of new high technology firms

High technology incubators have been funded in universities by the UK government as part of the ‘third mission’ for higher education (DTI 2000a). The provision of such facilities is premised on the notion that new technology firms achieve success at least in part from the benefits of incubators as rich networked environments where specialist knowledge acquisition can occur. This paper presents a exploration of how this process takes place, based on a case study of the high-tech incubator at the University of Southampton. The paper shows that firm founders adopt different approaches to the networked environment provided by the incubator; in this case the shift from Directorial support to that embedding in external networks was significant as firms grew. Taking account of this process should enable incubator managers to develop practices that ensure firms gain maximum advantage from the available resources.     

Knowledge flow in Technological Business Incubators: Evidence from Australia and Israel

The study of the contribution of incubators to economic growth started to gain momentum in the 1980s, following the growth of the incubation phenomenon. While acknowledging the challenge of evaluating incubators׳ outcomes, we shift the focus from incubators׳ performance to their internal processes, in particular, the interrelationships through which the incubator stakeholders share knowledge. The literature suggests that small new ventures tend to fail because they lack managerial experience and ability to raise capital in an early stage. Incubators are expected to overcome these obstacles by offering experienced monitoring skills and by enhancing access to capital at a firm׳s early stage. However, empirical results of incubators׳ ability to perform their role are often contradictory, making policy makers question their effectiveness. We provide evidence from Australian and Israeli incubators. Our findings suggest that collaborations between incubatees, graduated incubatees, and incubator management increase the incubatees׳ knowledge of technology and market in both countries. Collaboration between incubatees and incubator management also increase incubatees׳ financial knowledge and their likelihood of raising capital. We also found that universities played a modest role as a source of new ideas for incubatees, but a more important role in later stages of incubatees׳ new product development processes.     

Explaining incubators using firm analogy

Incubators are initiated to accelerate the development of new technology-based firms. Policy actors see them as a tool to initiate or revive innovativeness in regions and universities as a way to commercialize research results. However, even though the intended results of the incubator are good it is not known how the incubator should be managed and organized in order to achieve this end. When faced with a new type of organizations analogies can provide insights gathered from other contexts. To contribute to the further understanding of incubators this paper discuss the implications, in terms of highlighted dimensions and further clarifications needed when using the analogy of a firm. The paper uses empirical findings from six incubators. The discussion shows it is not clear who is the actual customer of the incubator. For example, can the policy actors that provide the funding to the incubator be seen as a customer paying for the service of regional revival and the NTBFs customers when their fees are not in relation to the services they are provided? In the discussion it is suggested that the incubator can have many customers with different value creation processes or no customers depending on the viewpoint taken.     

市场机制下孵化器创新创业服务体系研究

为进一步助推“双创”升级,创孵机构一直不断地探索着新的商业模式、探索优质资源,进一步改善运作效率。在目前的市场经济环境中,要实现创新创业服务资源的最优配置,就需要结合市场机制研究孵化器的服务模式。文章分析了市场机制下孵化器创新创业服务的定价模型,根据该模型得到孵化器市场化运作效率的影响因素。基于该定价模型进行实证研究,可以分析得到孵化器在实际市场运行过程中存在的问题,并以创业黑马为例进行了创新创业服务运营的实例分析。根据该定价模型与实证分析结果,提出了从服务内容优化、服务效率优化、孵化器品牌战略、入孵筛选机制优化等方面优化孵化器运营模式,探寻适合孵化器长期可持续发展的创新创业服务体系,从而进一步助推创新创业。     

基于DEA的高校创业孵化器的绩效分析

论文以高校创业孵化器运行效率为研究对象,选取了2015-2019年全国20个地区高校创业孵化器的4个投入指标和3个产出指标,采用DEA方法得出2015-2019年全国20个地区高校创业孵化器的各效率值,并利用Malmquist指数从投入和产出两个角度进行动态效率分析,以此得到不同省份的高校创业孵化器的技术和效率变化趋势并进行综合分析,最后为提高全国高校创业孵化器运行效率提出对策及建议。     

Cooperation patterns of incubator firms and the impact of incubator specialization: Empirical evidence from Germany

The article examines cooperation patterns of 150 firms located in German business incubators (BIs). More specifically, this study distinguishes between networking within the tenant portfolio and the academic–industry linkages of the tenant firms. We further contribute to the relevant literature by explicitly considering differences in cooperation patterns between firms located on diversified and specialized incubator facilities. Empirical results do not support the common assumption that specialized incubation strategies increase the effectiveness of incubator-internal networking compared to diversified BIs. Also, incubator specialization is not superior to diversified incubators with respect to the promotion of linkages of their tenants with academic institutions. For academic linkages, industry effects matter more than incubator characteristics.     

Business incubation models and institutionally void environments

This paper builds a conceptual framework of business incubation models in institutionally void environments, a relevant yet understudied topic in the extant literature. On the basis of a qualitative approach based on the analysis of five case studies drawn from a sample of business incubators in Egypt, and grounding on the literature on institutional voids, we posit that there is a necessity for two different incubation models in institutional laggard environments, typically found in, yet not limited to, developing countries. In particular, we show evidence that the two models supply and facilitate different needs of entrepreneurs, in different stages of entrepreneurial life cycle. We further argue that the incubation model choice is contingent on the incubator sponsors, i.e. affiliation of the incubator, mainly through available resources and imposed objectives. Finally, we offer implications for policy makers who can use the framework to design the regulations in a way that will stimulate appropriate incubator creation and hence sustain local entrepreneurship, as well as for incubator managers who can follow the findings to position their incubation model in line with their resources, capabilities and objectives.     

A candidates selection approach for district alliance of university incubators

There are 79.3% of incubators in university campus. These university incubators are funded and directed by the government in Taiwan. However, each incubator has given limited resources and geographical limitation. To overcome these issues, district alliance is become a very good way. So that the total public expenditures required for incubators can be reduced. This paper uses the viewpoint of operation research for this issue. Base on the methodology of data envelopment analysis (DEA) and heuristic techniques, this research develops an evaluation method for university incubators to select their district partners to improve the potential average efficiency, integrating resources and enhancing performance. Realistic data are collected from Taiwan government for case study. The results indicate that the average efficiency of whole university incubators increases from 0.8000559 to 0.8962224 by our approach. The research analyses by slack variable analysis to assess the maximum operational performance as well. This research can effectively integrate the multi-resources of all university incubators, enhance competitive advantage and provides practical suggestions for government authorities when district alliance is assessed and initiated.     

高新企业孵化器的发展特征与趋势研究

本文明确了高新企业孵化器的定义及组成要素,对比当前中外高新企业孵化器的发展现状,总结了其发展特征,最后阐述了高新企业孵化器的发展趋势即公私合作的投资模式、专业主题型的定位、虚拟网络与实体产业一体化的运营模式及产业集成化的孵化器发展路径.     

云南省科技企业孵化器发展对策研究

科技企业孵化器是促进科技成果转化、培育科技型中小企业、造就创新人才的有效途径。总结云南省企业孵化器实施经验,可以为进一步推进云南省科技企业孵化器的发展提供积极的指导,为制定合理的科技企业孵化政策提供有效的决策建议。     

The importance of surrogate entrepreneurship for incubated Swedish technology ventures

Universities and incubators that are more experienced in venture creation have been found to appoint surrogate entrepreneurs as one way to improve entrepreneurial team formation. However, it is not known how such intervention into the core of a venture affects performance. This article investigates the impact of surrogate entrepreneurs on technology ventures stemming from leading Swedish university incubators. From a total of 170 ventures incorporated 1995–2005, belonging to 16 incubators, 59 ventures (35%) have received incubator help to recruit a surrogate entrepreneur. Swedish surrogate ventures perform significantly better in terms of growth and revenue compared to non-surrogates. Significantly higher performance of surrogates is also found in the subgroup academic technology ventures as well as the largest technology subgroup of information and communication technology (ICT) ventures. These findings in combination with a case study of the most productive incubation environment are used to propose future research and policy regarding university incubators intervening into entrepreneurial team formation in different ways.     

Network brokers or hit makers? Analyzing the influence of incubation on start-up investments

Incubators are a prominent way to support technology based start-ups. Yet, it remains unclear to what extent these incubators enhance start-up performance, nor is it known through which mechanisms this would occur. In this paper we test two mechanisms to explain the relationship between incubation and the amount of investments raised by early stage start-ups as performance measure. The ‘hit maker’ mechanism refers to beneficial effects of the direct transfer of resources and organizational or business knowledge from the incubator to the start-up. The ‘network broker’ mechanism refers to the benefits that start-ups enjoy from being connected to external funding sources through the incubator’s networks. We test which of these mechanisms contribute to the performance of early stage start-ups. Our data comes from a unique survey from 935 entrepreneurs with early-stage technology based start-ups in Western Europe and North America. We find that incubators have a positive effect on (1) the amount of funding that start-ups attract and (2) the ability of start-ups to attract funding from formal investors and banks. Moreover, our results provide evidence for the network broker mechanism, but not for the hit maker mechanism.     

常州市省级以上孵化器分析报告

随着江苏省常州市省级以上孵化器越来越多,孵化器成为推动该市经济发展不容忽视的力量,在整合资源、创造环境、培养人才方面发挥着不可低估的作用。文章分析近几年常州市省级以上孵化器的发展状况及其在发展过程中遇到的一些问题,并提供若干参考建议。     

The role of Technological Business Incubators in supporting business innovation in China: a case of regional adaptability?

This paper examines the extent to which both the support services of Technological Business Incubators (TBIs) and exogenous local factors facilitate the innovation activity of incubated new ventures. Using data on all 215 surviving Chinese incubators and their incubated firms from government surveys conducted over five consecutive years from 2009 until 2013, combined with information from nine case studies, we examine the effects of four incubator services on three levels of innovation in incubated firms, whilst also taking account of key exogenous factors. Technical service support from an incubator was found to have had a positive influence on all levels of innovation activity across all regions whilst incubator financial support had a positive effect on the making of more advanced innovations. The availability of venture capital had a significant impact on making lower order innovations whereas the availability of scientific knowledge resources influenced more advanced innovation activity. Whereas TBI support services in the more developed Eastern region are mainly concerned with leveraging external resources, those in the less developed Central and Western regions are more concerned with compensating for the lack of external resources to support innovation.     

“北京医孵”的专业化发展之路及其启示

北京生物医药高科技孵化器作为我国第一个专业孵化器,在十余年的经营历程中,秉承专注、专业的经营之道,植根生物医药领域,打造了一个覆盖生物医药研发、中试、生产和销售的全方位孵化体系。本文在实地调研的基础上,通过对北京医孵专业化发展道路进行介绍和剖析,以期对我国现阶段孵化器运作提供有益借鉴和参考。     

Attitudes towards different sources of executive appraisal: a comparison of Hong Kong Chinese and American managers in Hong Kong

This study examines the attitudes of three groups of managers in Hong Kong, namely, Hong Kong Chinese managers in local Chinese firms (HK/HK), Hong Kong Chinese managers in US firms (HK/US) and American managers in US firms (US/US), towards supervisory, peer, subordinate and multi-source appraisal of executive performance. The more recent perspective of crossvergence, within the convergence-divergence debate, provides the theoretical foundation for formulating the hypotheses. The findings indicate support for this new perspective of crossvergence. There is also evidence of the coexistence of all the three perspectives of convergence, divergence and crossvergence. The study found that the practice of supervisory appraisal is supported more by HK/US and US/US managers than by HK/HK managers. Furthermore, both HK/US and US/US managers are more supportive of subordinate evaluation than peer evaluation. Overall, the findings indicate that the traditional Chinese values may be more congruent with the notion of supervisory appraisal than with peer and subordinate evaluation. The study thus points out the importance of the compatibility of norms and beliefs regarding a management practice such as performance appraisal with the local national cultures in determining the acceptance and hence the transferability of that practice across countries.     

Identifying new dimensions of business incubation: A multi-level analysis of Karolinska Institute's incubation system

Relying on an in-depth case study of the incubator related to the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institute's (KI), this paper identifies new analytical and strategic dimensions of incubation. Departing from the current literature's prevalent focus on incubators as organizations performing a predefined set of activities for incubatees (facility renting, coaching, training and connecting), we perform a multilevel analysis embracing, next to the organizational and the project-specific levels, also the broader institutional and inter-organizational level. Our analysis relies on seven key components of incubation, namely its time, place, sources, resources, control/governance, activities/services and outcomes. Further, we view incubators as strategic actors engaged in value creation on a broader arena than the strict incubation context, even an international arena, where incubators' choices and interactions can be analyzed with the help of concepts from various streams in the business strategy literature. The specific strategic drivers of business incubation that we identify in the KI incubator's case are six: positioning in the value chain, risk taking/time perspective, revenue model, governance/control, internationalization, and cooperation/competition. The paper concludes with managerial implications urging incubators to take more of a strategic perspective rather than focussing only on the established components of their operations.     

The Relevance of Strategy Research: Practitioner and Academic Viewpoints*

It is important for strategy research to have practical relevance given its professional orientation. the differing perspectives of academics and managers and the rapid development of the field of strategic management suggests a need to address the field's future direction. In this paper, a practitioners' agenda for the field is developed based on a survey of chief executive officers (CEOs) of major US corporations. A comparison of this agenda with one generated by academics highlights the differences between the two constituencies concerning issues of relevance for the future. Compared to academics, CEOs emphasize operating issues; disagree on the priority of strategic issues; and are generally unfamiliar with research-based journals. the two agendas should be viewed as complementary. Some implications for the field are discussed and suggestions made for dealing with the issue of relevance in future research and communicating the results to managers.     

Corporate environmental behaviour – a comparison between Nordic and US firms

The green challenge will be one of the key strategic issues facing businesses in the coming decades. Some argue that it is important for mankind as a whole. In this article the opinions of Nordic and US managers on environmental matters are investigated and compared. A questionnaire was sent to senior managers mainly in four industries: forest and paper, electronics, telecommunications and the printing industry. The results show that US managers perceive government laws and actions to be more stringent than Nordic managers do and the time to adapt was felt to be too short. There were no differences between the two regions in the degree of pro‐activeness and environmental innovation. However US managers reported a shortage of skilled labour. Managers both in the Nordic countries and the USA considered themselves to be ahead of their competitors in environmental actions. Nordic managers were much more positive toward the competitive effects and profitability of environmental measures than their US counterparts. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment