M.A. / The impact of the New Economy on the enterprise is major and the change drivers required for success are pervasive and significant. At the same time traditional geographic boundaries to the flow of information and commercial transactions disappear. To position for success, the requirement to develop the capability to manage risk and operate under high levels of uncertainty becomes as important as the capacity for change. This demands a paradigm shift in management’s approach away from “the answer” to an approach which allows for portfolio management and the ability to investigate, fund and manage approaches to multiple strategic and operational options. The strategic challenges lies in when to lead and when to follow, the organisational challenge then becomes building flexibility, environment-sensing capabilities and an internal capacity to develop, nurture and harness knowledge and innovation. Whilst the benefits of leveraging innovation as a strategic business growth driver is accepted, the management of the process of doing so is manifestly difficult in most enterprises. This is due to outdated management processes and organisational structures, cultural prejudices caused by the enterprise being more comfortable with core activities and a lack of adequate skills within the enterprise to research, develop and manage innovative ideas to fruition. Enterprises can manage this process of leveraging innovation in a number of ways by inter alia, staff management via continuing education and training, a corporate culture with such characteristics as: “Off-line” innovation time, internal competition, knowledge management tools, cross- functional meetings, a knowledge capture Intranet, etc. and an organisational accountability which relates to a well-defined process that affords the enterprise and its employees the opportunity to move ideas across organisational boundaries without being inhibited by the usual organisational politics and turf-protection. An approach to this is via strategic internal consulting groups or a “New Ventures” division – essentially entities set up to incubate and manage new business opportunities Such a new venture division or business incubator requires as a critical component an established process and evaluation methodology to effectively manage innovation initiatives. This research will focus on the development, application and management of such a new ventures division along the structure of a business incubator. It is an accepted adage that all “healthy” enterprises generate and use knowledge, but this is, as with the management of innovation, easier said than done. Whilst many enterprises will simply hire smart people and leave them to their own devices, research have indicated that successful knowledge generation initiatives not only address the processes but also focus on the team structure and the internally on the working circumstances. Businesses faced with disruptive technologies such as the Internet find it very difficult to redesign or rearrange their organisational structures to face the challenges of the New Economy. Also there has always been a measure of distinct tension, between the boardrooms of enterprise and the technical, scientific or other resources on which the former depends for the creation of new wealth – the net result is that the role of the traditional “Corporate R&D” is being diminished. There is a strong perception that views the arrival of the incubator as an approach for corporates / enterprises to set this mindset apart and to get some speed, vitality, action and urgency back into enterprises inhibited by, inter alia, excessive bureaucracy. Although the concept of incubators has now surfaced in Europe and in South Africa, it is not new. What today underscores the interest is the success that enterprises like Idealab!, eToys, GoTo.com and NetZero achieved. The more comprehensive intra-enterprise or corporate incubators offer a range of services that exceed that of the traditional venture capitalist. Corporate incubation grew out of the realisation that innovation and entrepreneurship were severely limited by the typical corporate environment. In addition enterprises realised that they were losing their brightest talent and best innovative ideas as people left to start their own businesses. To this threat they responded by offering employees’ incentives to either build their ideas as enhancements to the current business, extensions or entirely as new spin-offs. These incentives were modelled on share participation, a "safe" best practice rich environment and access to corporate resources that in many instances culminated in corporate business incubators. Corporate incubators constitute a logical extension to knowledge management, innovation and R&D, as a means of profiting from intellectual capital and extending competitive advantage. Indeed it has been said that the only sustainable competitive advantage is continuous innovation. Incubators of various types are sine qua non with the dot.com start-up ventures towards the latter part of the nineteen nineties. It was viewed as one of many approaches to capitalise on knowledge available and to allow for the fast tracking of innovative advances. Many of these start-up incubators failed and incubators became looked upon as not being the ideal vehicle for innovative quick-to-market and thus first mover advantage. Yet, the very nature of the approaches used in an incubator lends it to the harnessing of knowledge and innovation in an enterprise which can be applied as part of a process to gain a competitive advantage from engaging in such a process.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

Thesis (M. Sc.)(Technology Management)--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Includes summary. Includes bibliographical references . Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (PhD) - Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship, Faculty of Business and Enterprise, Swinburne University of Technology, 2009. / A thesis is submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy, Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship, Faculty of Business and Enterprise, Swinburne University of Technology - 2009. Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (p. 250-280)

This study investigated 157 business owners perceptions as to the importance of four value-added contributions to the development of their businesses through the early stages of their life-cycles. Literature suggested these value-added contributions to be: shared office services, business assistance, access to finance and business networks. The purpose of this research is to help business incubator managers solve the problem of how to allocate limited resources, in the form of value-added contributions, to multiple tenant businesses at different stages of growth. To do this an electronic questionnaire was used with a set of multiple choice questions that established the stage of growth that each business was in, and a constant sum exercise determined the perceived importance to each respondent of each of the four value-added contributions. Of the five early stages of growth proposed in the literature, these being existence, survival, growth, expansion and resource maturity, only four were represented in the data. Non-parametric tests for significance at a 95% confidence level showed that no significant difference existed in the perceived importance of any of the value-added contributions across stages of growth, however a clear indication of the relative importance of each value-added contribution within each stage of growth was identified. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Thesis (MTech (Business Administration (Entrepreneurship)))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2015. / The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of business incubators on survivalist entrepreneurs in the Cape Metropolitan Area. The question that guides this research is: What is the impact of business incubators on survivalist entrepreneurs in the Cape Town Metropolitan Area? This study was conducted in the context of economic growth and development, considering addressing the following problems: small business failure and the unemployment rate in South Africa. Although entrepreneurship is of greater importance to the growth and development of an economy, not all entrepreneurs are presented with the same opportunities and resources as others. As opposed to formal businesses, informal small businesses are normally discriminated against in terms of support, which is offered to them to necessitate their growth. The contribution that they make towards economic growth and development is often seen as insignificant. They lack opportunities that are enjoyed by large businesses and they suffer from discriminating policies, which has resulted in suppressed growth of these business ventures.

Business incubators are one of the state means intended to support small and medium-sized businesses. Business incubators supply beginner enterprisers with assistance and information necessary for initiating new businesses. The year of 1998 is considered to be the beginning of business incubators in Lithuania, as in the month of June in 1998 the first business incubator was officially registered in Kaunas. The business incubator of Telšiai region and the business incubator of Vilnija were registered in November of the same year and business incubator of Alytus was registered in December of this year. In January of 1999 the business incubator in Šiauliai was recorded. In the august of the year 2000 Kazlų Rūda business incubator was registered. Finally, in 2004 the seventh business incubator in Lithuania, which was established in Ignalina, began to function under the auspices of the state government. The main objective of business incubators is to support beginner enterprisers, to promote establishing new work places, to minimise (decrease) the risk of business operations and help businesses with initiative ideas yet short of financial resources to undertake self-sufficient practice and compete in the market successfully. In Lithuania businesses are held in the business incubator for three years. During the first year they pay 25% of rental taxes, during the second year they pay 50% of rental taxes and during the third year they pay 75% of rental taxes. The remaining sum is... [to full text]

M.Ing. / Sunter (1999:13) states "Unemployment is now the scourge of virtually every single nation." Sunter believes that unemployment or the creation of new jobs will be the responsibility of small businesses. If one however analyses the survival of new business ventures, failure is not the exception but the rule. According to literature 52% of all new business ventures are dissolved within the first four years of their existence and 63% within 6 years. Various publications on business incubators state that new business ventures that were incubated by business incubators demonstrated a success rate that is as high or higher than the failure rate of non-incubated new business ventures. A typical success rate of approximately 86% is quoted as the norm for these incubated ventures. The success rate can be attributed to the support provided by the incubators. The support and services provided by incubators consist typically of a range of products but the distinguishing attribute or feature is the support programme developed and tailored to meet the specific requirements of each individual organisation that joined the incubator. To ensure that jobs are created in South Africa it seems that incubators should be in a position to contribute much. The results of an evaluation of the achievements of seven of the highly visible incubators in South Africa, indicate that the flirtation with incubators resulted in very limited success. None of the seven examples were found to be very successful, but not all for the same reason. The aim of this dissertation is to identify some of the attributes that a high-technology incubator should possess to ensure success. The approach adopted was to: Define what a high-technology business incubator is. Identify the typical life-cycle of new ventures. Determine why new ventures fail. Determine the critical success factors of new ventures Determine the reasons for failure of South African high technology business ventures and incubators. Then based on the results of the above define some of the attributes a South African incubator should possess. The conclusion is that the attributes, excluding flexible lease space, shared business services and networking to the know-how network (technical) of the South African incubators are well developed. The following attributes were found lacking and should be fully developed: Education, training and information programmes; Networking to debt and equity capital and networking in general and Counselling and mentoring support. These attributes are those that will enable an incubator to develop and tailor support programmes to meet the specific requirements of individual firms. The South African environment is identified as being detrimental to the development of small new ventures and it was recommended that it should form the subject of further research.

Alors que les problématiques de santé et du bien-être des employés occupent une place importante des travaux en gestion des ressources humaines, la santé des entrepreneurs souffre d'un manque de reconnaissance considérable dans le champ de l'entrepreneuriat. Ce constat est en partie due au fait qu'une vision héroïque de l'entrepreneur va, pendant longtemps, fournir de base au champ de l'entrepreneuriat. Dans les faits, il apparaît que la création d'entreprises est un phénomène complexe, puisqu' après cinq années d'existence seulement une entreprise sur deux réussit à maintenir son activité. Ceci va justifier l'essor des systèmes d'appui à la création d‘entreprises puisqu'il est admis qu'ils apportent les ressources nécessaires au bon développement des entreprises et qu'ils permettent ainsi de limiter les risques éventuels d'un échec. L'avènement des structures d'accompagnement reflète un constat d'insuffisance des ressources dont disposent les créateurs d'entreprises au démarrage de leur activité alors même que celles-ci sont déterminantes pour leur développement et leur survie. Néanmoins, ces ressources ne sont plus exclusivement d'ordre technique. Le champ de l'accompagnement entrepreneurial converge vers la nécessité d'intégrer une logique modulable, s'adaptant aux besoins des créateurs d'entreprises. Un accompagnement technique standard semble aujourd'hui dépassé et se diriger vers une meilleure prise en compte de certaines attentes en matière de soutien psychologique et affectif, ce qui laisse entrevoir le potentiel de nouvelles méthodes d'accompagnement, notamment en matière de santé. Ceci étant appuyé par une approche pathogène de l'entrepreneuriat (qui va être majoritairement appréhendée au travers les études consacrées aux facteurs de stress entrepreneurial) et salutogènes (aux travers les études consacrées aux traits de personnalité attribués aux entrepreneurs). Ces constatations permettent de soulever l'existence d'une santé entrepreneuriale composée d'un volet pathogène et salutogène à travers lesquels il est pertinent d'associer le champ de l'accompagnement. La thèse vise à répondre à la problématique suivante : quels sont le rôle et les perspectives de l'accompagnement du créateur d'entreprise en matière de santé ? Deux axes de questionnement se déclinent de la problématique centrale. Ils traitent des déterminants de santé (facteurs/issues pathogènes et salutogènes) qui impactent l'entrepreneur et le processus de création d'entreprise, et du rôle des structures d'accompagnement en regard de ces déterminants. La méthode de recherche est qualitative et repose sur une étude de cas multiples. Les cas (les pépinières d'entreprises innovantes, les structures virtuelles, les incubateurs académiques et scientifiques) ont été déterminés conformément à l'étude théorique et à l'objet d'étude. Ils sont représentatifs de la réalité d'un terrain multiforme. Les résultats mettent en évidence une dimension pathogène de l'activité entrepreneuriale, à travers l'identification de sources de stress entrepreneurial qui influent sur les conditions dans lesquelles les créateurs d'entreprises développent leur activité, et qui impactent négativement leur état général. Néanmoins, ce volet pathogène est modéré par l'existence de facteurs salutogènes, à la fois dispositionnels et environnementaux, qui vont avoir une influence positive sur l'équilibre et le bien-être du créateur d'entreprise. L'analyse approfondie de chaque cas a permis de mettre en exergue une dimension salutogène (notamment à travers un rôle de soutien social) des spécificités des méthodes d'accompagnement des créateurs d'entreprise, et relative à l'importance attribuée à chaque composante d'accompagnement. Ceci permet de mettre en perspective une approche salutogénique de l'accompagnement entrepreneurial fondée sur la ressource du bien-être. / Even though issues of employee health and well-Being play an important part of human resources research, the health of entrepreneurs is suffering from a lack of research in the field of entrepreneurship. This can be attributed to the fact that a heroic figure of entrepreneurs provided a longstanding basis for entrepreneurship research. In practice, starting a new business is a more complex process than expected since only one in two businesses remains active after five years of existence. This explains the development of support structures for entrepreneurship since it is accepted that they provide resources to ensure the proper development of the business, thus reducing the potential risks of failure. The advent of business incubators reflects the lack of resources for new companies even when they are decisive to their development and survival. Nevertheless, these resources are no longer exclusively technical. A technical and standard support seems outdated, taking better account of psychological and emotional expectations. Research and practice of business incubation converge towards the need to integrate flexible and appropriate procedures to different profiles of entrepreneurs. This strongly suggests the option of developing new methods of incubation, including the health aspect.This is supported by a pathogenic approach of entrepreneurship (primarily based on entrepreneurial stress research) and a salutogenic one (through entrepreneur ‘personality traits research). These findings suggest a pathogenic and a salutogenic approach of a health entrepreneurship through which business incubation is concerned .The thesis aims to answer the following question: what are the role and prospects of a health-oriented support? Two issues arise from this questioning. These are related to health determinants (pathogenic and salutogenic factors/ outcomes) which affect both entrepreneurs and the business creation process, and the role of business incubation in terms of health. The research uses a qualitative method based on a multiple-Case study. These cases (IT-Focused Business incubators, virtual incubators, incubators linked to research institutes and universities) reflect the ground realities. They were established in accordance with the theoretical background and the purpose of the study. As a first step, the results highlight a pathogenic dimension of entrepreneurship, through the identification of entrepreneurial stressors which negatively impact entrepreneurship and individuals' conditions. However, a salutogenic dimension of entrepreneurship, through dispositional and environmental moderators, is perceived as influencing the well-being of entrepreneurs. In a second step, an in-Depth analysis highlights a positive nature of business incubation related to the specific characteristics of each cases and incubation components (especially through a social support role). Thus, combining these results highlights a salutogenic approach of business incubation based on the well-being resource.

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