Assessing the Impacts of Technology Business Incubators: A framework for Technology Development Centers in Turkey

Abstract

Entrepreneurship and innovation have been widely accepted as essential sources of business success, high value added job creation and national economic development. A wide array of mechanisms is being promoted to support innovative entrepreneurship. Among these mechanisms business incubators and related enterprise support systems have emerged worldwide as highly popular methods for promotion of economic development not only in industrialized countries but also industrializing and restructuring countries, although the discussions have been continuing about their impact or performance. Many researches have been conducted to assess their performance or impact. However these researches generally use similar indicators to assess the performance of business incubators both in developed and developing world. This study will review the related works on the performance of business incubators as an SME support tool and also its relevance for Turkey with a special focus on the assessment of the performance of the incubators for the case of Turkey. We will try to add draw a framework to assess the Technology Business Incubators in Turkey on the basis of the development stages concept.