When incubator resources are crucial: survival chances of student startups operating in an academic incubator

Abstract

Earlier studies provide mixed results regarding the influence of incubator resources on a startup’s chances of survival. This study suggests that this is because they tend not to take into consideration the attributes of the founders who actually make use of those resources. Based on 59 student startups operating in an academic incubator, this study finds that founding teams’ prior experience moderates the positive relationship between an incubator’s mentoring program and the startup’s chances of survival through the first year. The results demonstrate that the survival chances of startups whose founding teams have high levels of managerial experience or low levels of entrepreneurial experience are low when they do not take advantage of the incubator’s mentoring program. Drawing on learning theory, this study explains how different types of prior experience influence the relationship between the incubator’s mentoring program and the startup’s first year survival chances. The study’s results expand our understanding of and contribute to resource-based view theory by considering the interactive influence of founding teams’ human capital and incubators’ resources on startups’ chances of survival.