Incubation as a support measure to early stage Entrepreneurship : The Case of Blekinge Business Incubator

Business Incubation has recently attracted increased attention as a model of start-up facilitation. Venture capitalists see incubators as a means to diversify risky investment portfolios, and would-be entrepreneurs approach incubators for start-up support. More than a thousand incubators have been established in the last few years, most of them as regional business incubators. But new types of incubators are emerging. These incubators pursue different strategic objectives, apply different skills and competencies, and serve different markets. As a consequence, they have developed a new understanding of their sources of competitive advantage and business models which are able to satisfy some of the needs of the entrepreneur. Based on the results from some interviews to some entrepreneurs under the Blekinge Business Incubator and the Centre for Advanced Technology Incubator, some of the problems/needs of the entrepreneur were identified. The study also revealed the various activities and support measures provided by the two incubators and further ascertain how effective some of these support has helped improved the businesses of some entrepreneurs in the early stages. The study concludes that though there is other support measures, governments could strengthen incubator and incubations processes as a way to promote entrepreneurial activity within an economy so as to bring economic development.+452667278