Assessing and Managing the University Technology Business Incubator : An Integrative Framework

Seeks to develop a framework for assessing and managing university-based technology business incubators (UTBI). Three related areas of knowledge are used to develop this framework: (1) business incubation support, (2) university's involvement in technology and business development support, and (3) organizational effectiveness approaches. The conceptual model that is created is based on three sets of variables: (1) performance outcomes, (2) management policies and their effectiveness, and (3) services and their value-added. Performance outcomes are further divided into program growth and sustainability, tenant firm's survival and growth, contributions to sponsoring-university's mission, and community-related impacts. Management policies are broken down by goals, structures and governance, financing and capitalization, operational policies, and target markets. Services are examined in terms of shared incubator services and university-related services. In order to test the validity of this model, data were gathered from 30 five-year and older U.S. facilities. Four of these facilities were analyzed using a comparative evaluation approach. Using these four facilities, the analysis shows that the proposed model is flexible and easy-to-use in assessing and managing the performance of UTBIs. This model will help those assessing UTBIs to better understand performance and areas for improvement. (SRD)