The role of knowledge sharing in business incubators performance

Abstract

As knowledge-intensive firms, start-ups typically lack the knowledge, ability and strategies for communication to acquire it. Business incubators have emerged to enhance their access to such resources via external networking, and minimize their failure rate and affect their competitive advantages. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of the knowledge sharing practices among incubatees on the performance of business incubator. This research also investigates the informal communication networks of start-ups as antecedents of knowledge sharing. Data was collected from start-ups (n = 104) in Malaysian business incubators. The results indicate the strength of the informal communication networks influences the amount of knowledge shared among start-ups, but not the density of the communication networks. It also provided the evidence that knowledge sharing is significantly effective on business incubators performance in supporting the start-ups. The findings of this study allow business incubators to obtain a different perspective on the process and better formulate the incubation process.