Business Incubators as a resource provider

Incubators are becoming an important tool to increase infrastructure and development supporting entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is described as a key factor in order to create new companies that generate fresh possibilities for economic growth. The background chapter explains how incubators have changed through time and how earlier contributors have described the incubation process. This thesis research explores how the resources within the incubator are delivered and create value for its incubatees. The theoretical framework reviews the incubation process key components and the resources. The results disagree with Nolan (2003) and von Zedwitz (2003) who argues that co-location is not a necessity for an incubator. The findings also show that co-location does not necessarily indicate collaboration among incubatees. Through using coaching as a resource the incubator can provide an environment where collaboration is present. This is dependent on what kind of incubatees the incubator possesses. The findings suggest a clear strategy in order to maintain a fair and flexible screening process. By using the framework of Bergek & Norrman (2008) the screening process indicated a variability of screening methods among the incubators. The incubators different approaches to coaching were categorized. The findings suggest that a proactive and continuous coaching enhances the possibility of creating a good environment for the incubatees through the incubation process. Even though the incubation process contains somewhat the same resources the two incubators provides them in different ways. The findings suggest that if the incubators manage to create and increase the sharing culture within the incubator the incubatee s access more resources. This collaboration is based on mutual trust. The incubators roles as a mediator is not only dependent on their network, but also accessing the incubatees network and make them share them among each other. By pushing the incubatees to communicate the learning curve during the incubation period may increase. Therefore, the incubation processes consist of similar resources, but differ in the way of managing them