Title: Epistemology of business incubators and the incubation theory

Authors: Apoorva Ranjan Sharma; Balvinder Shukla; Manoj Joshi

Addresses: Venture Catalyst & 9 Unicorns, C/802, Mayfair Meridian, Ceaser Road, Navneet Colony, Andheri (West), Mumbai 400058, India ' Amity University Uttar Pradesh, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, 201313, India ' Centre for VUCA Studies, Amity University Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow Campus, Uttar Pradesh- 226028, India

Abstract: This scholarly contribution attempts to explore the role of business incubators (BIs) on Indian start-ups, leading to unanswered queries. Can it impact innovation? How does it leverage job generation? Does it lead to an effective business creation? The authors manoeuvred to an important posit on BIs' impact on job generation, wealth creation and economic development of India. Primary data through structured and unstructured interviews was chosen as a research method, with founders of start-ups, entrepreneurs and BIs. Out of the existing 40 BIs spread across PAN India, barring few, most responded. A healthy start-up spin-off from these BIs leads to job generation in turn wealth creation. The research provides an insight to the Indian perspective based on the interaction with the founders of start-ups and BIs. The authors propose a new business incubation model based on mentoring, which has been tested in reducing the start-up mortality rate by 1%.

Keywords: entrepreneurship; innovation; start-up; business incubators; accelerators; job generation; wealth creation; India.

DOI: 10.1504/IJESB.2023.133486

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 2023 Vol.50 No.2, pp.151 - 174

Received: 06 Mar 2020
Accepted: 04 Jul 2020
Published online: 18 Sep 2023 *

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