Beyond the water cooler: using socialization to understand use and impact of networking services on collaboration in a business incubator

Edwin J Nijssen,Michel Van Der Borgh

doi:10.1111/radm.12261

Abstract

Scholars and policymakers claim that Business Incubators (BIs) add value by facilitating internal cooperation between tenant firms. Taking a tenant perspective, this research investigates the impact of a tenant's length of BI tenure on the use of formal internal networking services the BI management provides, and then on the tenant's level of intra‐BI cooperation. The premise is that BI tenants use and benefit more from formal internal networking services when their socialization through participation in BI informal networking activities is low. When socialization is high they will enjoy a stronger direct effect of tenant tenure on cooperation with other tenants. Findings from data collected from a Dutch BI confirm the premise of our moderated‐mediation model. Results also show that both mechanisms complement each other and that each contributes significantly to tenants' sales growth. It lends support to the effectiveness of BI formal internal networking services, but also stresses the importance of socialization through informal networking activities.

Highlights

Business incubators (BIs) are a popular tool for policy makers to stimulate the innovativeness of a region or to commercialize university research results (Bruneel et al, 2012)
What is the role of Business Incubators (BIs) formal internal networking services for promoting intra-BI collaboration? Do informal internal networking activities in the BI work differently? Is, for instance, the effectiveness of BI formal internal networking services contingent on BI management’s ability to involve tenants in the BI’s informal, social networking activities?. We address this gap in the BI literature regarding the role of BI internal network and cooperation by developing and empirically testing a moderated-mediation framework focusing on the three-part relationship between (1) a tenants’ length of BI tenure, (2) their level of intra-BI collaboration, mediated by (3) their participation in formal internal networking services offered by BI management
R2’s are reported at the bottom of the table. It shows that our independent variables explain non-trivial levels of variance in our dependent variables. It confirms a significant increase in R2 between Model 1 and 2 for the equations pertaining to use of BI formal internal networking services (DR2 5 0.07, F change 5 6.53, P < 0.01) but not for the equations using intra-BI collaboration as the dependent variable (DR2 5 0.00, F change5 0.01, P < 0.92)

Summary

Introduction

Business incubators (BIs) are a popular tool for policy makers to stimulate the innovativeness of a region or to commercialize university research results (Bruneel et al, 2012). BIs aim to accelerate start-ups’ success by co-locating them and offering support activities, including formal networking services. Close proximity to other start-ups offers a new firm more opportunities for learning from and cooperating with business counterparts to gain momentum and accomplish early growth (Bøllingtoft and Ulhøi, 2005). Characterized by unproven technology and new products and/or services, a lack of market reputation, and limited knowledge of customers or limited access to customers, startups typically struggle to establish themselves (DeKinder and Kohli, 2008). Despite several decades of research much ambiguity remains regarding the importance and role of the internal BI network and cooperation (T€otterman and Sten, 2005; Aaboen, 2009). The vast majority of tenants indicate that they came to an incubator

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