New Business Ideas Incubation Process: Some Exploratory Findings of Three Portuguese Business Incubation Programs

Introduction

The ability to continuously innovate has become a source of competitive advantage for firms (Tola & Contini, 2015). In this context, the promotion of entrepreneurship is increasingly recognized as an important driver of economic development and job creation (Bruton, Ketchen, & Ireland, 2013). Thus, several countries have been creating instruments to promote and encourage entrepreneurial activities to stimulate economic growth (Mueller & Thomas, 2001). One of the mostly used instruments are incubators of new business ideas (Albort-Morant & Ribeiro-Soriano, 2016), which aim to support the creation or development of small and medium-sized enterprises, especially in the initial stage (Aernoudt, 2004). Business incubators can be seen as mechanisms to strengthen countries’ economic and technological development, by fostering entrepreneurial ideas, encouraging the growth of newly created firms, and reducing the likelihood of failure of new business ventures (Carayannis & von Zedtwitz, 2005). Moreover, business incubators can be seen as intermediary organizations, helping newly founded and young ventures to establish cooperative relationships with a broad range of economic actors (Schwartz & Hornych, 2010). Hence, incubation has the objective of reducing new firms’ mortality rate, providing physical support and technical-managerial support, promoting networking with other stakeholders and providing access to sources of financing. Zedtwitz (2003) stresses that expectations for a business incubator should not be exclusively financial or short-term, since the success of a start-up is a time-consuming process. So, any business model of an incubator should be designed on a long term perspective.