This article systematically reviews the literature on business incubators and business incubation. Focusing on the primary research orientations—i.e. studies centering on incubator development, incubator configurations, incubatee development, incubator-incubation impacts, and theorizing about incubators-incubation—problems with extant research are analyzed and opportunities for future research are identified. From our review, it is clear that research has just begun to scratch the surface of the incubator-incubation phenomenon. While much attention has been devoted to the description of incubator facilities, less attention has been focused on the incubatees, the innovations they seek to diffuse, and the incubation outcomes that have been achieved. As interest in the incubator-incubation concept continues to grow, new research efforts should focus not only on these under-researched units of analysis, but also on the incubation process itself.

A Systematic Review of Business Incubation Research

The networked business incubator—leveraging entrepreneurial agency?

The purpose of this article is to review the emerging research on entrepreneurial ecosystem and to guide future research into this promising area. The study presents a critical review on the entrepreneurial ecosystem, starting from its very definition and antecedents. Combining prior research with building on the main concepts that constitute an entrepreneurial ecosystem, we have developed an original set of guidelines that can help scholars and practitioners seeking an answer to the following pressing question: “How can we gain a comprehensive understanding of an entrepreneurial ecosystem?”. We will then discuss the opportunities for expanding our current knowledge on entrepreneurial ecosystems and describe the current debates and directions for future research. Lastly, we will provide guidelines that policymakers may take into consideration when designing and issuing support measures to promote entrepreneurship in their local ecosystems.

Entrepreneurial ecosystem research: present debates and future directions

Transnational diaspora entrepreneurship in emerging markets: Bridging institutional divides

https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1040&context=sppworkingpapers

The broadband digital divide and the economic benefits of mobile broadband for rural areas

Business incubators are one option communities have to support business survival and growth. Incubators are locally based institutions that provide shared physical space and business support services to new and young firms. Most incubator evaluations have not measured total employment and income impacts or the fiscal impacts generated by incubator firms. This article describes the economic and fiscal impacts of one business incubator to illustrate how an incubator can encourage jobs and income in a local community. Incubators generate jobs and income and create linkages with firms inside and outside the local economy over the long run. The cost of creating these jobs is competitive with those costs associated with attracting manufacturing investment into a local community. Incubators can have an impact on communities that are not well positioned to attract such external investments.

Economic and Fiscal Impacts of a Business Incubator

Although cooperatives are viewed as an important vehicle for community development, the relationship between cooperatives and communities is a neglected research issue. Because of this neglect, no framework for analysis of the relationship between cooperatives and communities exists. We present case studies of non-agricultural cooperatives in rural areas that provide some general insights into the innovative activities of successful cooperatives in rural community development. The case studies help define a new framework for analyzing the complete impact and efforts of cooperatives as community development agents. In contrast to the typical unifunctional and multifunctional categorization of cooperatives, our framework identifies two main categories of cooperative community development activities: unintentional, by simply organizing a business as a cooperative, and intentional, by creating community development programs. Cooperatives in this latter group are further sub-divided according to how closely th...

Cooperatives in Rural Community Development: A New Framework for Analysis

Research on the economic impact of entrepreneurship makes the case for entrepreneur-focused economic development. Community economic development practitioners and policy-makers face the challenge o...

Deborah M. Markley

Papers

Economic and Fiscal Impacts of a Business Incubator

Cooperatives in Rural Community Development: A New Framework for Analysis

Creating entrepreneurial communities: building community capacity for ecosystem development

E-Commerce as a Business Strategy: Lessons Learned from Case Studies of Rural and Small Town Businesses

Public involvement in venture capital funds: lessons from three program alternatives.