Performance assessment of business incubators: Towards a systematic literature review

Abstract

It is only recently that research focused primarily on the performance of business incubators has gained ground. Identifying the scientific research work dealing with the question of the evaluation of these incubation structures remains a priority. It leads us to an understanding of the different factors of relevance and success of the incubated companies than the incubators themselves. That is to say, it is not possible to set successful incubated companies if they are located in incubators that are not. It emphasizes the need to understand the key factors that make an incubator successful.

The objective of this research is to assess the current state of the literature concerning the performance factors of business incubators allowing to create a healthy and ideal environment and guaranteeing the success of their incubators. More specifically, this research aims at providing some answers to the following questions:

(a) How is research represented on the performance of incubators (b) What are the most appropriate definitions of incubation; and (c) What are the different performance factors of business incubators.

Hence, we conduct a systematic study of previous systematic literature reviews (RLS). We apply several searches (databases, keywords, research questions, selection criteria, etc.) in order to retrieve the related publications, which will then be selected and evaluated.

Our results show that current research on business incubator performance factors is in its early stages. This situation calls for an intensification of investigative efforts in the form of a SLR on the different mechanisms of success of these incubators and even for their incubates.