Entrepreneurship is frequently linked together with aspects of economic growth and development. In the last 40 years, an increasing number of incubators and service providers have been created to stimulate entrepreneurship and innovation. However, in the increasingly globalized and digitalized world, few virtual and digital initiatives have successfully been studied to encourage and facilitate entrepreneurship. This study aims to understand further how digital and virtual products and services can aid entrepreneurs in venture creation and potentially add to an updated and broader understanding of the potential in a virtual incubator program. By looking at three categories of entrepreneurial support actors, traditional public incubators, private incubators, and digital service providers. 14 semi-structured interviews were conducted to gain more in-depth knowledge of how they operate. More specifically, this study is conducted with actors that share the vision to assist startup in their initial phase and create a deeper understanding of what the incubator offers to startups and the possibility to adapt and improve their process using digital tools and external partnerships. Results indicate that the use of digital tools is varied. Incubators are leaning towards relying more on social media for reaching potential entrepreneurs and ideas, and further that a factor of validating every aspect of the startup is essential to promote success. The incubator mainly acts as a mediator of network, funding, coaching, and finding talents has during the COVID-19 pandemic moved most of their activities from physical to online. The issue of trust-building is, however, still prominent, and the incubators are looking for ways and tools to improve on this issue. Implications of this study have the potential to lower barriers to entrepreneurship, where entrepreneurial support becomes less dependent on their local ecosystem and geographical factors. Future research is encouraged to classify virtual incubators and a further look at specific cases and pursuit more longitudinal studies to fully understand the potential effects and implications. This study contributes to the field of incubators and entrepreneurial support and the ongoing digital paradigm shift.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-12-01T19:18:45Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Danilo.pdf: 1730178 bytes, checksum: 9368a8c4699b8c6bcbcfdfb44da27ec0 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-02-28 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The Virtual Incubator (VI) is one of the newest types of business incubator. They render a great variety of services electronically, by the Internet. The concept of Virtual Organization (VO) is recent and it was introduced by Mowshowitz (1986), as a new organizational model, being composed by a net relatively stable of independent companies, that aim at to participate in business cooperations. The theme "Virtual Organizations" wins relevance as it is researched inside as a strategic alternative to increase the competitiveness and the earnings of a cooperation among organizations (CORRÊA 1999). The objective of the research seeks to define model to allow to create an applicable proposal of virtual incubator with the use of the theoretical reference of the theory of the virtual organizations - Model VIVO. Is that model the answer to the research question on how the theory of the virtual organizations can contribute with the model of incubators, in order to render to the companies and places, appropriate support services to the challenges of the global competitive scenery in the century XXI? The adopted methodology was theoretical-empiric, in the which, besides the revision of the literature on the subject, it tried to verify the coherence with the practical reality, through case study in the market. The study of chosen case is the Park of the Lakes, a project of territorial economical development with several organizations in cooperation, among them two consultancy companies that develop a business alliance together to supply services to the market. The analysis elaborated dimensions and research categories on strategic alliance, characteristics of VO and core competence, in order to produce relevant considerations to the research work on the model VIVO. Some were used instruments of collection of data as bibliographical and documental research, questionnaire and participant observation. At the end, starting from the elaborated theoretical-empiric research and of the case study used as example, it is possible to present the consolidated proposal of the model VIVO, tends like this, a body of solid work to subsidize the final conclusions and the futures studies on the theme / A Incubadora Virtual (IV) é um dos mais novos tipos de incubadora de negócios. Prestam uma grande variedade de serviços eletronicamente, pela Internet. O conceito de Organização Virtual (OV) é recente e foi introduzido por Mowshowitz (1986), como um novo modelo organizacional, sendo composta por uma rede relativamente estável de empresas independentes, que objetivam participar de cooperações de negócio. O tema "Organizações Virtuais" ganha relevância à medida que é pesquisado como uma alternativa estratégica para aumentar a competitividade e os ganhos dentro de uma cooperação entre organizações (CORRÊA, 1999). O objetivo da pesquisa visa definir modelo que permita criar uma proposta aplicável de incubadora virtual com o uso dos referenciais teóricos da teoria das organizações virtuais - Modelo IVOV. Esse modelo é a resposta à pergunta de pesquisa sobre como a teoria das organizações virtuais pode contribuir com o modelo de incubadoras, a fim de prestar às empresas e localidades, serviços de apoio adequados aos desafios do cenário competitivo global no século XXI? A metodologia adotada foi teórico-empírica, na qual, além da revisão da literatura sobre o assunto, procurou-se verificar a coerência com a realidade prática, através de estudo de caso no mercado. O estudo de caso escolhido é o Projeto Parque dos Lagos, um projeto de desenvolvimento econômico territorial com diversas organizações em cooperação, dentre elas duas empresas de consultoria que desenvolvem uma aliança empresarial para fornecer serviços em conjunto ao mercado. A análise elaborou dimensões e categorias de pesquisa sobre aliança estratégica, características de OV e competência essencial, a fim de produzir considerações relevantes ao trabalho de pesquisa sobre o modelo IVOV. Foram utilizados alguns instrumentos de coleta de dados como pesquisa bibliográfica e documental, questionário e observação participante. Ao final, a partir da pesquisa teóricoempírica elaborada e do estudo de caso utilizado como exemplo, é possível apresentar a proposta consolidada do modelo IVOV, tendo assim, um corpo de trabalho consistente para subsidiar as conclusões finais e os futuros estudos sobre o tema