Exploring docility: A behavioral approach to interventions in business incubation

Abstract

The business incubation process evolves through coach-incubatee interactions rather than merely institutional intervention. We contribute to a behavioral understanding of this process by exploring the determinants and expression of docility, a fundamental human behavior. Our findings suggest that business coaches’ perceptions of stakeholder value creation needs and their experience of incubatees’ proactive behavior are essential determinants of coaching behavior. These behavioral determinants lead coaches to place idiosyncratic expectations on and become responsive to incubatees, and this is reflected in the range of their interventions in new venture creation. From a behavioral perspective, the outcome of coaches’ interventions is a shared understanding of how to navigate the ambiguous and uncertain aspects of new venturing. Adopting a behavioral approach thus helps us to reframe business incubation—previously regarded to be a structured process—as a flexible process, more accurately capturing its role in facilitating the highly uncertain process of new venture creation.