Incubators as Tools for Economic Growth and Technology Transfer in Developed Countries

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explore, investigate and identify the key challenges of incubators focussing on four groups: economy, policy, industry, and culture. The identification is based on several varibles for each group. The nature of this research is mainly qualitative. This investigation uses one semi-structured interview based in the United States and organizational documents. The research findings suggest that there are three key challenges of incubators: 1) high number of jobs creation, high number of graduate companies and high survival rate of tenants lead to economic development, 2) high cooperation of R&D and high innovation lead to technology commercialization, and 3) high sustainable growth, high entrepreneurial climate and high smart-growth networking lead to fostering entrepreneurship. The authors believe that this paper presents added value to the current literature on the key challenges of business incubation in the United States. Also the research will support academia and practitioners for successful implementations and follow up.

Keywords: Jobs creation, technology commercialization, entrepreneurship, incubators, economic growth.