Incubating enterprise and knowledge: a stakeholder approach

This paper seeks to identify some of the issues, problems and successes associated with launching new business incubator units from a stakeholder perspective. Using two recently launched business incubators from Northern Ireland and Scotland, key aspects of incubator development are identified and explored from a stakeholder perspective. These include entrepreneurship training, technology support and business support. Setting up and running an incubator is defined in different ways by different groups. In setting up an incubator, the university and partners have to consider set-up costs, the incubator space to be built and the number of tenants forecast for that incubator. As the incubator is operating, issues such as operating costs, occupancy rates, length of tenancy and management time have to be considered. It is very important to evaluate performance in relation to each of the stakeholders, for issues such as continuation of funding, attracting new client companies and developing organisations.