Incubator Definition Based on a Review of Definitions in the Literature

Methodology

-Source: Google Scholar -Search terms: incubator* AND (compan* OR firm*) -Steps: 1. Found The Evolution of Business Incubators: Comparing demand and supply of business incubation services across different incubator generations; 2. Looked through intro of article and found chart and list of definitions of incubators

Incubator Definitions in the Literature

Institution	Definition	URL	Key Characteristics
National Business Incubation Association	Business incubation is a business support process that accelerates the successful development of start-up and fledgling companies by providing entrepreneurs with an array of targeted resources and services. These services are usually developed or orchestrated by incubator management and offered both in the business incubator and through its network of contacts. A business incubator's main goal is to produce successful firms that will leave the programme financially viable and freestanding. These incubator graduates have the potential to create jobs, revitalize neighborhoods, commercialize new technologies, and strengthen local and national economies.	http://www.nbia.org/resource_center/bus_inc_facts/index.php	TBD
United Kingdom Business Incubation	Business Incubation is a unique and highly flexible combination of business development processes, infrastructure and people, designed to nurture and grow new and small businesses by supporting them through the early stages of development and change.	http://www.ukbi.co.uk/	TBD
European Commission	A business incubator is an organization that accelerates and systematises the process of creating successful enterprises by providing them with a comprehensive and integrated range of support, including: Incubator space, business support services, and clustering and networking opportunities. By providing their clients with services on a ‘one-stop-shop’ basis and enabling overheads to be reduced by sharing costs, business incubators significantly improve the survival and growth prospects of new start-ups. A successful business incubator will generate a steady flow of new businesses with above average job and wealth creation potential. Differences in stakeholder objectives for incubators, admission and exit criteria, the knowledge intensity of projects, and the precise configuration of facilities and services, will distinguish one type of business incubator from another (p. 9).	https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22EC,%202002.%20Benchmarking%20of%20Business%20Incubators,%20Final%20Report.%20Brussels.%22	TBD
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development	Technology incubators are a specific type of business incubator: property-based ventures which provide a range of services to entrepreneurs and start-ups, including physical infrastructure (office space, laboratories), management support (business planning, training, marketing), technical support (researchers, data bases), access to financing (venture capital funds, business angel networks), legal assistance (licensing, intellectual property) and networking (with other incubators and government services) (p. 4).	https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=Technology%20Incubators%3A%20Nurturing%20Small%20Firms&publication_year=1997&author=OECD	TBD
Aernoudt (2004)	An interactive development process where the aim is to encourage people to start their own business and to support start-up companies in the development of innovative products. (…) Besides accommodation, an incubator should offer services such as hands-on management, access to finance (mainly through links with seed capital funds or business angels), legal advice, operational know-how and access to new markets (p. 127).	https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=Incubators%3A%20tool%20for%20Entrepreneurship%3F&publication_year=2004&author=R.%20Aernoudt	TBD
Sherman and Chappell (1998)	Business incubator is an economic development tool primarily designed to help create and new businesses in a community. Business incubators help emerging businesses by providing various support services, such as assistance in developing business and marketing plans, building management teams, obtaining capital, and access to a range of more specialized professional services. They also provide flexible space, shared equipment, and administrative services (p. 313).	https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=Methodological%20challenges%20in%20evaluating%20business%20incubator%20outcomes&publication_year=1998&author=H.%20Sherman&author=D.S.%20Chappell	TBD
Hackett et al. (2004)	Viewed the incubator as an enterprise that facilitates the early-stage development of firms by providing office space, sharedservices and business assistance. A business incubator is a shared officespace facility that seeks to provide its incubatees (i.e. ‘‘portfolio-’’ or ‘‘client-’’ or ‘‘tenant-companies’’) with a strategic, value-adding intervention system (i.e. business incubation) of monitoring and business assistance. This system controls and links resources with the objective of facilitating the successful new venture development of the incubatees while simultaneously containing the cost of their potential failure...the incubator is also a network of individuals and organizations including the incubator manager and staff, incubator advisory board, incubatee companies and employees, local universities and university community members, industry contacts, and professional services providers such as lawyers, accountants, consultants, marketing specialists, venture capitalists, angel investors, and volunteers.	https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1023%2FB%3AJOTT.0000011181.11952.0f.pdf	TBD
Lasya Rajan		2-5
Nancy Yu	3-5	1-4
Yi Ma		7:30-9:30, 2-5	8-10, 2-5

More Information

-Article Reviewing Definitions of Incubators