Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Incubation Support'

Small businesses are an important part of innovation, competitiveness and economic development. Support systems such as business incubators have emerged with the purpose of helping these startups develop. The startups which are in focus in this thesis operate in different industries, in technology-based industries where commercialization and growth is in focus, to creative industries which focus on developing individual talent and creativity. The characteristics and core of the businesses differ, giving them different business logics by which the startups operate. The business logic leads the startups to face different challenges, which the thesis considers to regard liabilities of smallness, liabilities of newness and liabilities of uniqueness as well as organizing.  These variations give the startups differences in how they operate and hence, also a need for different types of support given by business incubators. Business incubator support is in the thesis categorized into three components of Networks, Infrastructure and Business Services, as suggested in a triad model of Carvalho & Galina (2015). As varying business logics makes a difference on what type of value startups produce, it is important to study the relationship between these logics and the support provided by an incubator. It is important in order to understand how incubators can adapt their support more effectively to help entrepreneurs overcome their challenges.  The thesis purpose is to broaden the understanding of how business logics and challenges of startups adhere to the industry they are in, and how the support given by business incubators can help the businesses to overcome challenges associated with these business logics. The research design was qualitative, and data was collected by performing six semi-structured interviews with entrepreneurs within creative and technology-based industries, enrolled at business incubators with these specializations.  The study results in a proposed model, giving extension to the original triad model by Carvalho & Galina (2015). In the proposed model, new dimensions of the support system as well as the nature of the startups’ business logics, and challenges are addressed. The proposed model and the study’s results may act as a guiding framework for future research in the field, aiming to gain a better understanding of the reality of startups with different business logics.

Background and purpose - Digitisation is connecting various business actors to create interconnected ecosystems through digital platforms. Meanwhile entrepreneurial ecosystems are offering various benefits for start-ups e.g. through support organisations that offer services for them. Currently, these start-up support organisations face the challenge of leveraging digital services to create value for their member start-ups. The purpose of this study is to investigate how the digital services offered in start-up support organisations create value for start-ups. Approach - From a theoretical perspective, the sociology of value and service dominant logic concepts such as value co-creation and service ecosystems are considered. Qualitative methods were used to conduct a pre-study and an in-depth case study with a start-up hub in Stockholm's entrepreneurial ecosystem. Data was collected using 18 semi-structured interviews with start-ups and other actors in the ecosystem and participant observations of 17 events. Findings - Needs and challenges for start-ups were identified and mapped against the digital services used by the start-ups. These services facilitate interaction between various actors in the start-up hub. Seven interconnected value types for the start-ups were identified emerging from the use of digital and non-digital services in the start-up hub. Moreover, many of the digital services are not provided by the start-up hub alone but in collaboration with other actors, connecting the start-up hub to other actors in the start-up ecosystem. Research limitations and implications - The findings contribute to the understanding of how start-up support organisations leverage digital services to support their member start-ups. The connection of digital service usage to the creation of various value types provides a theoretical concept to research about service ecosystem. As the study has been conducted with a limited number of respondents and events in Stockholm, further research in other ecosystems and using different methods is suggested to ensure generalisability of the findings of this study. Practical implications - A number of practical suggestions for start-up support organisations can be derived from the findings, including that start-up support organisations can benefit from establishing and moderating a digital community, involving several actors from the ecosystem and continuously adapting digital services to the changing environment and needs of start-ups. Originality - To the best knowledge of the authors, this is the first study to investigate digital services in entrepreneurial ecosystems from the perspective of value in service ecosystems.<br>Bakgrund och syfte - Digitalisering förbinder olika affärsaktörer för att skapa sammankopplade ekosystem genom digitala plattformar. Samtidigt erbjuder start-up ekosystem olika fördelar för start-ups, till exempel genom stödorganisationer som erbjuder tjänster för start-ups. För tillfället möter dessa start-up stödorganisationer utmaningen att utnyttja digitala tjänster för att skapa värde för sina medlems start-ups. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur de digitala tjänster som erbjuds av stödorganisationerna skapar värde för start-ups. Tillvägagångssätt - Från ett teoretiskt perspektiv beaktas sociologin av värde och service dominerande logik begrepp som värde medskapande och serviceekosystem. Kvalitativa metoder användes för att genomföra en förstudie och en fördjupad fallstudie med ett start-up hub i Stockholms entreprenörsekosystem. Data samlades in med 18 halvstrukturerade intervjuer med start-ups och andra aktörer i ekosystemet och deltagarobservationer av 17 evenemang. Fynd - Behov och utmaningar för start-ups identifierades och mappades mot de digitala tjänster som start-ups använde. Dessa tjänster underlättar interaktion mellan olika aktörer i start-up hubben. Sju sammankopplade värdetyper för start-ups identifierades som en följd av användningen av digitala och icke-digitala tjänster i start-up hubben. Dessutom är många av de digitala tjänsterna inte tillhandahållen av start-uperna ensam men i samarbete med andra aktörer, som kopplar ihop start-up hubben till andra aktörer i start-up ekosystemet. Forskningsbegränsningar och konsekvenser - Fynden bidrar till att förstå hur start-up stödorganisationer utnyttjar digitala tjänster för att stöda sina medlemmar. Anslutningen av digital serviceanvändning till skapandet av olika värdetyper ger ett teoretiskt koncept för att undersöka serviceekosystemet. Eftersom studien har genomförts med ett begränsat antal respondenter och evenemang i Stockholm, föreslås ytterligare forskning i andra ekosystem och användande av olika metoder för att säkerställa generaliserbarhet av resultaten i denna studie. Praktiska konsekvenser - Ett antal praktiska förslag till start-up stödorganisationer kan härledas från resultaten, bland annat att de start-up stödorganisationerna kan dra nytta av att etablera och moderera ett digitalt samhälle, involvera flera aktörer från ekosystemet och kontinuerligt anpassa digitala tjänster till förändringen av miljön och behovet av start-ups. Originalitet – Till bästa kunskapen av författarna, är detta den första studien för att undersöka digitala tjänster i entreprenörsekosystem från perspektivet av värdet i service ekosystemen.