Business Incubator: Value Added Contributions and Effectiveness of Business Incubation Programs to Tenants in Australia

A business incubator or business incubation program is an enterprise development strategy designed to accelerate formation, development, growth, and survival rate of new businesses by providing them with various types of business assistance services. This book examines the effectiveness and value added contributions of business incubation programs from perspective of incubator tenants in Australia. The empirical analysis suggests that the Australian business incubation programs, in general, do add significant value as perceived by incubator tenants. The effectiveness of business incubation programs was found to be strongly affected by the intervention competence of incubator management and the usefulness of various types of incubator services. Surprisingly, benefits of business incubation programs were found to be greater for tenants who have previous entrepreneurial experience than inexperienced ones. Among other implications, the findings suggest that the management of business incubators must be competent in the eyes of their tenants and the tenants should have a good understanding about problems and needs of their business. The findings merit for future research.