Tenant recruitment at university incubators: a selection conundrum

Abstract

Chapter 23 posits that the client selection decision is arguably the most important consideration in the incubation process. The predominant view in the literature is that client selection ought to be carried out using a robust selection criterion linked to critical success factors. The author points out that in fact incubators do not follow a wholly rational process linking client attributes to critical success factors. Instead, a combination of both rational and non-rational or intuitive processes help assessors select clients which ‘appear’ most promising on a range of both written and un-written criteria. Due to the cognitive computational complexity and the limitations inherent in traditional information collection mechanisms, assessors consistently deploy the heuristic of attribute substitution to make selection decisions. A new “entrepreneurial readiness” heuristic is proposed to aid decision making.