Abstract

Background: Business incubation has the purpose of recruiting weak yet promising tenant-entrepreneurs or incubates. The weaknesses may include a lack of skills and abilities, lack of resources or lack of knowledge. The business case or opportunity should be promising. Further to the purpose, business incubators attempt to turn these deficient businesses into sustainable entities that can exit or graduate the incubator and survive on their own devices. Without this intervention through the incubator, it is extremely unlikely that these tenant-entrepreneurs or incubates will survive. In order to achieve the maximum likelihood of successful graduate-entrepreneurs and sustainable start-ups, business incubators must offer a full spectrum of services. These services should include access to physical premises, communal equipment, administrative support, training for skills development, access to professional and specialised skills, access to financial support, access to networking and access to mentorship. Objectives: It is the purpose of this study, firstly, to investigate and determine which of these services business incubators within the Northern Cape Province of South Africa offer. Secondly, it is the further purpose of this study to benchmark the incubators within the Northern Cape Province to international best practice models. Method: A qualitative research methodology was employed in this study. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, transcribed and analysed through qualitative software. The sample consisted of 63 respondents from 7 business incubators within the province. The sampling method was purposive. Results: The research results obtained indicated that four incubators within the province boast a very weak service offering. Furthermore, only one incubator truly benchmarked competitively against international best practice models. Conclusion: The study provides recommendation with regards to specialist mentoring, skills development and training of entrepreneurs and incubation-practitioners, as well as access to funding and physical upgrades of incubators. The research contributes to a very sparse body of existing research on small, medium and micro-enterprise (SMME) development within the Northern Cape Province. The study provides future research questions for academic researchers.

Highlights

  • South Africa is facing an entrepreneurial and unemployment crisis with an official unemployment rate estimated between 25% and 28%, and an unofficial unemployment rate of 37% (Du Toit et al 2018:122; Lilenstein, Woolard & Leibbrandt 2018:2; Littlewood & Holt 2018:526; Mahadea & Kaseeram 2018:3)

  • In order to benchmark the service spectrum offered by incubators according to international standards, one must investigate the service spectrum offered by best practice business incubator models to date (Galiyeva & Fuschi 2018:37; Olkiewicz et al 2019:38; Torun et al 2018:92)

  • The specific characteristics to comply with required an incubate, a service provider or a manager within a business incubator operation within the borders of the Northern Cape Province of the Republic of South Africa

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Summary

Background

Business incubation has the purpose of recruiting weak yet promising tenantentrepreneurs or incubates. Business incubators attempt to turn these deficient businesses into sustainable entities that can exit or graduate the incubator and survive on their own devices. Without this intervention through the incubator, it is extremely unlikely that these tenant-entrepreneurs or incubates will survive. In order to achieve the maximum likelihood of successful graduateentrepreneurs and sustainable start-ups, business incubators must offer a full spectrum of services. These services should include access to physical premises, communal equipment, administrative support, training for skills development, access to professional and specialised skills, access to financial support, access to networking and access to mentorship

Objectives
Conclusion
Introduction
Literature review
Research methodology
Ethical considerations
Findings
Summary of findings and theoretical implications
Research limitations and future research
Data availability statement
Full Text
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