Exploring and evolving a business incubation model for higher education institutions

• Main Author: Palina, John Octavio S.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2013
• Subjects: Business incubators; Business education; Business
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_doctoral/1473
• Institution: De La Salle University

Business incubators provide “real business world” situations to potential entrepreneurs in the sense that students are provided with a simulated businesslike set-up, consultancy services, and opportunities to negotiate or deal with markets. While business incubation models and frameworks abound in most foreign colleges or universities, there seems to be a dearth of materials that discuss business incubators drawn from the context within which it will be implemented. This situation triggered the conduct of this research which aimed to explore and evolve a business incubation model based from the current conditions of existing business incubators of Higher Education Institutions or HEIs in Region 02 and the perceived enablers and barriers for successful business incubation based from their experiences. Results indicate that little has been achieved in terms of the number of businesses that evolved out of the schools’ business incubators. Although the approach to entrepreneurship education was claimed by the respondent-schools to be entrepreneurial, a negligible evidence to support this claim was noted as manifested by very few business ideas that were commercialized, lack of clear-cut written policies, lack of qualified personnel, lack of adequate space and lack of adequate funding for the business incubation facility. These findings were supplemented by information taken from the regional and provincial offices of the Department of Trade and Industry, which served as bases for developing the proposed business incubation model. The model provides a general framework on how to manage the incubator but much of its substance in terms of specific guidelines and procedures still rest on the business schools since these may be based on the respective institution’s goals and objectives.