FUNDAMENTAL FACTORS FOR THE PERFORMANCE OF TECHNOLOGY BASED INCUBATORS

Abstract

Business incubators are seen as important actors for enterprise and even for regional development. Incubators are created to facilitate entrepreneurship by providing a favorable environment to recently formed firms until they reach a degree of maturity. In this article we use the framework originally proposed by Soetanto and Van Geenhuizen (2007) to examine the importance of critical factors in the incubation process. Ours is a quantitative study of a sample of 37 technology based incubators, using the rough set method on data collected from SAPI - Sistema de Acompanhamento de Parques Tecnológicos e Incubadoras de Empresas. This system is a development from the National Program of Support to Business Incubators and Technological Parks (PNI). The results show that incubators located in metropolitan areas with better access to knowledge and tangible resources will have more candidates for occupancy. We also show that incubators that offer value added services beyond the usual infrastructure assistance have more candidate companies, and that incubators with greater experience achieve a better results in terms of candidate demand. We conclude with a general discussion of the need for better understanding of incubator effectiveness.