The entrepreneurial learning process within business incubators, particularly among novice entrepreneurs in Sweden's entrepreneurial landscape, still needs to be explored. The present study, centered around the question, "Through a social constructivist perspective, how do novice entrepreneurs learn within business incubators in Sweden?", adopts a social constructivist perspective to fill this knowledge gap. Using a qualitative, inductive approach and the Critical Incident Technique (CIT), the study focuses on novice entrepreneurs at the Uppsala Innovation Centre (UIC), Sweden. Data collection involved semi-structured interviews and a two-step sampling method, while data analysis was grounded in Vygotsky’s Social Development Theory. This methodology aimed to unravel the intricacies of the entrepreneurial learning process within the UIC. These findings offer valuable insights to novice entrepreneurs and a particular business incubator, suggesting how they might structure more conducive incubator environments for effective entrepreneurial learning. It also underscores the importance of networking within the incubator's environment. However, these findings have certain limitations. They are based on data from a single Swedish incubator and may not be generalized across diverse entrepreneurial ecosystems. Moreover, the reliance on self-reported experiences introduces potential biases. Future research should address these limitations by incorporating multiple incubators across different countries and by introducing diverse perspectives and external assessments for more comprehensive and objective findings. The study concludes that providing a conducive social constructivist environment in business incubators is essential for fostering effective entrepreneurial learning, with emphasis on learning from networking with the more knowledgeable others (MKOs). These conclusions offer valuable directions for policy-makers, incubator managers, and novice entrepreneurs, aiming to enhance the sustainability and success of startups in dynamic entrepreneurial ecosystems.

As accountability pressures have increased on community colleges, they have been challenged to demonstrate their value to the communities they serve. One role commonly included in community colleges' mission statements in Tennessee and nationally is support of local economic development. The purpose of the study was to assess the importance and accomplishment of 17 activities and 3 roles of Tennessee community colleges regarding their support of business incubators that provide resource-sharing networks to entrepreneurs in their critical startup phases. To conduct this study, a questionnaire was developed and provided to administrators associated with incubators and incubator tenants to ascertain their perceptions regarding community college support of Tennessee incubators. The questionnaire was administered state wide through the assistance of existing Tennessee business incubator directors. The population for this study was Tennessee administrators associated with the incubators and the incubator tenants. Ninety-seven questionnaires out of 156 were returned, for a 62% response rate. The findings of the study included: (1) there was general agreement between administrators and tenants on their perceptions of the degrees of accomplishment and importance of community college activities supporting incubators; (2) there also was agreement between administrators and tenants that the importance exceeded the accomplishment of community colleges' business incubation activities and aggregative roles; and (3) no relationship existed between demographic and institutional factors and how the tenants and administrators perceived the importance and accomplishment of community colleges' business incubation activities and roles. Conclusions reached from this study were: (1) There was a need for increased community college efforts to support business incubation activities; and (2) demographic and institutional factors did not affect the overall perceptions of the importance and accomplishment of the community colleges' business incubation activities and roles. Recommendations to improve Tennessee community colleges' practice included: (1) Administrative leaders at each community college should increase the time and money they devote to supporting their respective business incubator; and (2) each community college should use the assessment data from this study as a basis for a more detailed evaluation to develop or revise a strategic plan for business incubator support. Recommendations for further research were to replicate this study in other states and for the entire nation. Using this and future studies, college administrators could target their community college services to better serve business incubator needs, thereby supporting the unique economic development activities in their respective service areas. As a consequence, the results of their revised strategic plans for incubator services could demonstrate how those community colleges' economic development efforts are being accountable to their missions.

No description available.

Henkel's New Business team is a corporate venturing unit that explores corporate entrepreneurial activities on behalf of Henkel Adhesives Technologies. The new business ideas are implemented through one of these models: incubator, venturing or innovation ecosystem. In current practice, there is no systematic framework in place to choose the implementation model. The goal of the thesis is to propose a framework for choosing the most appropriate model for implementation of a new business idea in Henkel. The thesis approaches the topic on practical and theoretical grounds. The first part outlines the related literature and theoretical focus. The literature covers definitions and theories of incubator, corporate venturing, corporate venture capital, innovation ecosystem and investment decision-making process. The practical approach relates to the company case studies of Philips, 3M and BASF. In this thesis, each model is analyzed based on a broad literature review, case studies and personal interviews with experts. The second part is the main discussion and analysis of the topic assembling with practical examples in Henkel. It comes to a recommendation that Henkel should prioritize and choose the most appropriate model for the new business proposal after the "concept scoping" stage, and before detailed investigation. It also proposes a scorecard framework that entails 14 key criteria for choosing the mode: degree of market competition, potential disruptiveness, technological risk, time to market, strategic alignment, degree of customization, dependency of related industries, technological newness of related industries, idea source, protectability of intellectual property, internal expertise, technological competence, commercial competence and parenting advantages. Furthermore, a new business developing strategy matrix is constructed based on two dimensions: strategic importance and operational relatedness. It is to further check the accuracy and validity of the results from the scorecard framework. Finally, it is suggested that future research can be done to improve the framework by adding weightings and scale of each criteria within the framework.

A gestão empresarial, de uma forma em geral, enfrenta novos contextos quanto à sua estrutura organizacional que suporte a dinâmica do mercado, que incentive a aprendizagem, que esteja antecipada as tendências de consumo e necessidades dos clientes; e que possa ser criativa o suficiente para promover a inovação. Neste sentido, o conhecimento se torna um recurso estratégico para as empresas. Este estudo teve como objetivo propor diretrizes para um portal colaborativo para a transferência do conhecimento no contexto de ambientes de desenvolvimento de empreendimentos inovadores visando a melhoria no processo de inovação e desenvolvimento dos negócios das empresas incubadas. Quanto ao desenvolvimento, baseado em estudos norteadores sobre gestão do conhecimento, transferência do conhecimento para aspectos da colaboração e portais, foi aplicada a metodologia de modelagem organizacional Enterprise Knowledge Development (EKD). Os resultados abordaram três perspectivas: o modelo do estado atual, a análise das necessidades de mudança e o modelo do estado futuro, que apresentam em principal, o modelo de componentes e requisitos técnicos que norteiam as diretrizes para o portal colaborativo, para a transferência do conhecimento, integrado aos objetivos organizacionais, regras do negócio, atores e recursos. / The corporate management, in a general way, faces new contexts for their organizational structure wich supports the market dynamics, wich encourages learning, that is in advance to consumer trends and customer needs, and wich can be creative enough to foster innovation. In this way, knowledge becomes a strategic resource for companies. This research aims to propose guidelines for a collaborative portal for knowledge transfer in the context of innovative projects development in order to improve the innovation process and the development of business of incubated companies. Regarding development, based on guiding studies on knowledge management, knowledge transfer for collaboration aspects and portals, was applied the organization modeling methodology Enterprise Knowledge Development (EKD). The results discussed three perspectives: the as-is model, needs-for-change analysis and the to-be model, in which presents mainly the technical components and requirements model that provide the guidelines for collaborative portal for knowledge transfer, integrated with organizational goals, business rules, actors and resources.

Tanto as incubadoras como as aceleradoras são organizações especializadas no suporte de empreendimentos em fases iniciais, em especial, aqueles intensivos em inovação conhecidos como startups. Apesar da grande disseminação dessas organizações, há poucas informações na literatura que evidenciem as suas diferenças e as contribuições na jornada do empreendedorismo inovador. Assim, o objetivo principal deste estudo é comparar a diferença entre as propostas de valor das aceleradoras e das incubadoras a partir da percepção das startups que tenham sido tanto incubadas como aceleradas. Entre os objetivos específicos temos: discutir possíveis relações entre as aceleradoras e as incubadoras de negócios; apresentar a evolução das incubadoras e os fatores que induziram o surgimento das aceleradoras, descrevendo os diferentes arquétipos e as implicações que essas organizações têm no ecossistema de empreendedorismo; apresentar o cenário nacional do fenômeno de aceleração e de incubação. O levantamento de dados contará com duas etapas: análise documental de fontes de dados secundárias e estudos de caso com uso de técnica de entrevista e questionário semiestruturado. A análise documental foi feita a partir de banco de dados de artigos científicos, dados oficiais de governos, fundações, revistas e páginas web especializadas e editais de chamamento das próprias organizações. A análise documental fornecerá o retrato de como as incubadoras e as aceleradoras se promovem no ecossistema como organizações importantes no apoio às startups. Em seguida, através de abordagem exploratória descritiva e qualitativa, foram realizadas entrevistas com roteiros semiestruturados com fundadores de startups que foram incubadas e aceleradas, para compreender o valor que cada um desses processos forneceu ao desenvolvimento dessas empresas. Concluiu-se que existe uma dissonância entre o valor percebido pelas startups e o que as incubadoras e as aceleradoras promovem. Também foi possível identificar que a busca por recursos pelas startups tende a não seguir um processo linear, capturando as melhores oportunidades que estejam disponíveis no momento. Por fim, esta pesquisa é um passo exploratório para trazer novas evidências do fenômeno das startups e dos diferentes instrumentos que as constroem. Sugerem-se encaminhamentos que possam preencher lacunas na literatura a respeito dos fenômenos citados, indicando a necessidade de estudos futuros que adensem o conhecimento desse fenômeno. / Both incubators and acelerators are specialized organizations to support early-stage ventures, especially innovation-intensive ones known as startups. Despite the great spread of these organizations, there is a few information in the literature that show their differences and contributions in the journey of innovative entrepreneurship. The main objective of this study is comparing the difference between value porposition of accelerators and incubators from the perception of startups that have been both incubated and accelerated. The specific objectives are: to discuss possible relationships between accelerators and incubators; to present the evolution of the incubators and the factors that led to the emergence of the accelerators, describing the different accelerators archetypes and the implications in entrepreneurship ecosystem; to present the national scenario of acceleration and incubation. The data collection stage had two stages: documentary analysis of secondary data sources; and the case study using interview technique through semi-structured questionnaire. The documentary analysis was made from a database of scientific articles, official data from governments, foundations, journals and specialized web pages and incubators and accelerators calls for proposals. Documentary analysis provided a picture of how incubators and accelerators are promoted to the ecosystem and startups. Then, through a descriptive and qualitative exploratory approach, interviews were conducted with semistructured scripts with founders of startups that were incubated and accelerated to understand the value that each of these processes provided to the development of these companies. It was concluded that there is a dissonance between what the incubators and the accelerators promote and the value perceived by the startups, they are not being able to identify enough characteristics that distinguish them. The reason for it is the diversity of the needs and demands of the startups, different models of accelerators and incubators are formulated that, in many cases, overlap in the benefits offered. It was also possible to identify that the search for resources by startups, whether radical or disruptive startups, does not follow a linear process, capturing the best opportunities available in the ecosystem through a minimally tactical and selective approach. In order to contribute to the understanding of the growing formation of organizations supporting startups, such as incubators and accelerators, and considering the findings of this research, a tool was suggested to define the types of these organizations, loosely termed \"startup guiders\". This tool analyzes three basic dimensions: business model, value proposition and stage of intervention in the development of early-stages ventures. Finally, this research is an exploratory step in bringing new evidence of the phenomenon of startups and of the different instruments that construct them. It is suggested that there be gaps in the literature regarding the mentioned phenomena, indicating the need for future studies that increase the knowledge of this phenomenon.

University managed technology-based business incubators evolved at major research institutions as a mechanism for university professors to pursue commercial applications of their research without having to resign their university positions. These incubators assisted the universities in retention of valuable faculty and also provided for the development of university intellectual property (IP) to a level where commercialization was probable. In addition to faculty retention and the potential for revenue from commercialization of IP, these incubators further developed the universities’ reputations in producing cutting edge research. The physical proximity of the incubators to the universities is crucial because this allows easy access to university intellectual capital, equipment and skilled technical labor that enable fledgling businesses to survive and flourish. Many regional universities are adding an emphasis on research and community economic development to their primary mission of teaching. As a result they are establishing business incubators. The goals for these incubators include creation of an environment and culture for the establishment of student driven companies, improvement of commercialization of university intellectual property, enhancement of the ability to attract technology-based businesses and provision of a living laboratory for student to work within the entrepreneurial environment. Just as is the case for the traditional research universities, business incubators at regional universities provide the supporting infrastructure that permits the university faculty to take advantage of SBIR and STTR programs to launch businesses and move university IP toward commercialization. In addition, the formation of a university-managed business incubator provides an excellent environment for non-university established technology businesses to benefit from the advantages of university faculty, personnel, students and graduates in both consulting and employee positions. Establishing a university managed technology-based business incubator at a regional university requires a strategic vision that integrates the universities core competencies, academic and research missions, senior administration concerns, capital and building campaigns and economic development concerns of the surrounding communities. This paper proposes a conceptual framework for building the strategic vision, developing the necessary infrastructure and mitigating risks when establishing the incubator. In addition, a discussion of lessons learned through the establishment of our university managed technology-based incubator at ETSU is presented through a mini-case study.

Tanto as incubadoras como as aceleradoras são organizações especializadas no suporte de empreendimentos em fases iniciais, em especial, aqueles intensivos em inovação conhecidos como startups. Apesar da grande disseminação dessas organizações, há poucas informações na literatura que evidenciem as suas diferenças e as contribuições na jornada do empreendedorismo inovador. Assim, o objetivo principal deste estudo é comparar a diferença entre as propostas de valor das aceleradoras e das incubadoras a partir da percepção das startups que tenham sido tanto incubadas como aceleradas. Entre os objetivos específicos temos: discutir possíveis relações entre as aceleradoras e as incubadoras de negócios; apresentar a evolução das incubadoras e os fatores que induziram o surgimento das aceleradoras, descrevendo os diferentes arquétipos e as implicações que essas organizações têm no ecossistema de empreendedorismo; apresentar o cenário nacional do fenômeno de aceleração e de incubação. O levantamento de dados contará com duas etapas: análise documental de fontes de dados secundárias e estudos de caso com uso de técnica de entrevista e questionário semiestruturado. A análise documental foi feita a partir de banco de dados de artigos científicos, dados oficiais de governos, fundações, revistas e páginas web especializadas e editais de chamamento das próprias organizações. A análise documental fornecerá o retrato de como as incubadoras e as aceleradoras se promovem no ecossistema como organizações importantes no apoio às startups. Em seguida, através de abordagem exploratória descritiva e qualitativa, foram realizadas entrevistas com roteiros semiestruturados com fundadores de startups que foram incubadas e aceleradas, para compreender o valor que cada um desses processos forneceu ao desenvolvimento dessas empresas. Concluiu-se que existe uma dissonância entre o valor percebido pelas startups e o que as incubadoras e as aceleradoras promovem. Também foi possível identificar que a busca por recursos pelas startups tende a não seguir um processo linear, capturando as melhores oportunidades que estejam disponíveis no momento. Por fim, esta pesquisa é um passo exploratório para trazer novas evidências do fenômeno das startups e dos diferentes instrumentos que as constroem. Sugerem-se encaminhamentos que possam preencher lacunas na literatura a respeito dos fenômenos citados, indicando a necessidade de estudos futuros que adensem o conhecimento desse fenômeno. / Both incubators and acelerators are specialized organizations to support early-stage ventures, especially innovation-intensive ones known as startups. Despite the great spread of these organizations, there is a few information in the literature that show their differences and contributions in the journey of innovative entrepreneurship. The main objective of this study is comparing the difference between value porposition of accelerators and incubators from the perception of startups that have been both incubated and accelerated. The specific objectives are: to discuss possible relationships between accelerators and incubators; to present the evolution of the incubators and the factors that led to the emergence of the accelerators, describing the different accelerators archetypes and the implications in entrepreneurship ecosystem; to present the national scenario of acceleration and incubation. The data collection stage had two stages: documentary analysis of secondary data sources; and the case study using interview technique through semi-structured questionnaire. The documentary analysis was made from a database of scientific articles, official data from governments, foundations, journals and specialized web pages and incubators and accelerators calls for proposals. Documentary analysis provided a picture of how incubators and accelerators are promoted to the ecosystem and startups. Then, through a descriptive and qualitative exploratory approach, interviews were conducted with semistructured scripts with founders of startups that were incubated and accelerated to understand the value that each of these processes provided to the development of these companies. It was concluded that there is a dissonance between what the incubators and the accelerators promote and the value perceived by the startups, they are not being able to identify enough characteristics that distinguish them. The reason for it is the diversity of the needs and demands of the startups, different models of accelerators and incubators are formulated that, in many cases, overlap in the benefits offered. It was also possible to identify that the search for resources by startups, whether radical or disruptive startups, does not follow a linear process, capturing the best opportunities available in the ecosystem through a minimally tactical and selective approach. In order to contribute to the understanding of the growing formation of organizations supporting startups, such as incubators and accelerators, and considering the findings of this research, a tool was suggested to define the types of these organizations, loosely termed \"startup guiders\". This tool analyzes three basic dimensions: business model, value proposition and stage of intervention in the development of early-stages ventures. Finally, this research is an exploratory step in bringing new evidence of the phenomenon of startups and of the different instruments that construct them. It is suggested that there be gaps in the literature regarding the mentioned phenomena, indicating the need for future studies that increase the knowledge of this phenomenon.

A gestão empresarial, de uma forma em geral, enfrenta novos contextos quanto à sua estrutura organizacional que suporte a dinâmica do mercado, que incentive a aprendizagem, que esteja antecipada as tendências de consumo e necessidades dos clientes; e que possa ser criativa o suficiente para promover a inovação. Neste sentido, o conhecimento se torna um recurso estratégico para as empresas. Este estudo teve como objetivo propor diretrizes para um portal colaborativo para a transferência do conhecimento no contexto de ambientes de desenvolvimento de empreendimentos inovadores visando a melhoria no processo de inovação e desenvolvimento dos negócios das empresas incubadas. Quanto ao desenvolvimento, baseado em estudos norteadores sobre gestão do conhecimento, transferência do conhecimento para aspectos da colaboração e portais, foi aplicada a metodologia de modelagem organizacional Enterprise Knowledge Development (EKD). Os resultados abordaram três perspectivas: o modelo do estado atual, a análise das necessidades de mudança e o modelo do estado futuro, que apresentam em principal, o modelo de componentes e requisitos técnicos que norteiam as diretrizes para o portal colaborativo, para a transferência do conhecimento, integrado aos objetivos organizacionais, regras do negócio, atores e recursos. / The corporate management, in a general way, faces new contexts for their organizational structure wich supports the market dynamics, wich encourages learning, that is in advance to consumer trends and customer needs, and wich can be creative enough to foster innovation. In this way, knowledge becomes a strategic resource for companies. This research aims to propose guidelines for a collaborative portal for knowledge transfer in the context of innovative projects development in order to improve the innovation process and the development of business of incubated companies. Regarding development, based on guiding studies on knowledge management, knowledge transfer for collaboration aspects and portals, was applied the organization modeling methodology Enterprise Knowledge Development (EKD). The results discussed three perspectives: the as-is model, needs-for-change analysis and the to-be model, in which presents mainly the technical components and requirements model that provide the guidelines for collaborative portal for knowledge transfer, integrated with organizational goals, business rules, actors and resources.

Submitted by Joana Azevedo (joanad@id.uff.br) on 2017-10-10T13:47:41Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DISSERT Claudio Almeida Pinheiro.pdf: 2607136 bytes, checksum: 4eb6590137f0db3422bb97235d0e8507 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Biblioteca da Escola de Engenharia (bee@ndc.uff.br) on 2017-10-16T11:21:56Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 DISSERT Claudio Almeida Pinheiro.pdf: 2607136 bytes, checksum: 4eb6590137f0db3422bb97235d0e8507 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-10-16T11:21:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DISSERT Claudio Almeida Pinheiro.pdf: 2607136 bytes, checksum: 4eb6590137f0db3422bb97235d0e8507 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-09-05 / As incubadoras de empresas devem garantir condições favoráveis para o sucesso das empresas incubadas e pré-incubadas, diminuindo o índice de fracassos das micros e pequenas empresas, para alcançar o sucesso precisam ampliar quantitativa e qualitativamente seus resultados, de forma que os objetivos e metas sejam alcançados para um patamar de sustentabilidade do negócio. O objetivo deste estudo é propor um sistema de indicadores de desempenho que permita a Incubadora de Empresas em Tecnologia – IETEC (CEFET-RJ) atender os requisitos para a implantação e certificação do modelo CERNE 1, através do método do Design Science Research, para criar o artefato proposto, utilizando modelos conhecidos de sistemas de mensuração de desempenho de incubadoras de base tecnológica, existentes na literatura. Dentro deste contexto, com incentivo governamental foi criado pela Associação Nacional das Entidades Promotoras de Empreendimentos Inovadores (ANPROTEC) em parceria com o Serviço de Apoio às Micro e Pequenas Empresas (SEBRAE), o Centro de Referência para Apoio a Novos Empreendimentos (CERNE), com a elaboração de procedimentos padronizados para a implementação de sistemas de gestão de desempenho das empresas e da própria incubadora, utilizando de ferramentas e mecanismos adequados para a mensuração. O artefato criado é composto por (40) indicadores de desempenho que contemplam os cinco eixos norteadores do CERNE: empreendedor, tecnologia, capital, mercado e gestão. / Business incubators should ensure favorable conditions for the success of the incubated companies and pre-incubated, decreasing the rate of failures of micro and small enterprises to achieve success you need to expand your results, quantitative and qualitatively of so that the goals and objectives are achieved to a level of sustainability of the business. The objective of this study is to propose a system of performance indicators that allow the technology business incubator-IETEC (CEFET-RJ) meet the requirements for the implementation and certification of the model CORE 1, by the method of Design Science Research, to create the artifact proposed, seeking in literature known models of performance measurement systems of technology-based incubators. Within this context, with Government incentive was created by the National Association of organizations promoting Innovative Ventures (ANPROTEC) in partnership with supporting service for Micro and small enterprises (SEBRAE), the Centre of reference for supporting new Developments (CORE), with the development of standardized procedures for the implementation of performance management systems of companies and own incubator, using appropriate mechanisms and tools for measurement. The artifact created consists of (40) performance indicators covering the five axes guiding CORE: entrepreneur, technology, capital, market and management.