TY - JOUR
T1 - Legitimacy-building role of incubators
T2 - a multiple case study of activities and impacts of business incubators in a developing Chinese city
AU - Cheng, Ying
AU - Liu, Yanyan
AU - Cross, Adam R.
N1 - Funding Information:
Secondly, we examine a different incubator context from Western mainstream literature, which tends to overlook the close relationship between different external stakeholders and incubators. Our evidence shows that incubators in China exhibit a different degree of closeness with their incubation network stakeholders and that, in particular, government agencies are the most significant stakeholder for many incubators. These different connections result in different legitimacy-building outcomes of the incubators. In addition, our research also reveals that incubators in less developed regions of China undertake different activities compared to those in more developed regions of the country. In the context of our study, the incubation activities are mainly basic incubation activities and networking. Unlike in Western settings (), financial support, especially direct financial support, was rarely seen in the Chinese incubators we sampled. This evidence also highlights that context matters in incubator research (; ).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.
PY - 2022/7/15
Y1 - 2022/7/15
N2 - Purpose: Business incubators are advantageous to new venture legitimacy because they provide rich access to entrepreneurial resources, and their incubation networks can offer endorsement to incubatees. However, empirical evidence on this topic is limited, and the existing literature relies predominantly on the Western context. Given that not all developing country incubators have resourceful and reputable external entrepreneurial networks as in the industrialized countries, and that new ventures need to build legitimacy along cognitive and socio-political dimensions that require different actions to influence different stakeholders, this study investigates empirically how business incubators facilitate their incubatees to build legitimacy in a context where resource and reputation conditions are weak. The purpose of this paper is to clarify how business incubators perform legitimacy-building roles effectively. Design/methodology/approach: A multiple case study of business incubators in Chongqing, a second-tier Chinese city, is presented. Using grounded theory, this paper draws its findings from a synthesis of interviews and secondary data of seven incubators and their ten incubatees. Findings: The legitimacy-building role of business incubators is performed well in this research context. Evidence is presented that incubators play different roles in building different dimensions of incubatees’ legitimacy. Government-associated incubators play a salient role in building incubatees’ socio-political legitimacy whilst non-government related incubators shape their incubatees’ cognitive legitimacy. Originality/value: This study contributes to the business incubators literature by revealing how incubators perform the legitimacy-building role when their resource endorsement is weak. The results suggest that incubators need to strengthen their ties with external stakeholders and that new ventures need to take key stakeholders into consideration when they select incubators to enter.
AB - Purpose: Business incubators are advantageous to new venture legitimacy because they provide rich access to entrepreneurial resources, and their incubation networks can offer endorsement to incubatees. However, empirical evidence on this topic is limited, and the existing literature relies predominantly on the Western context. Given that not all developing country incubators have resourceful and reputable external entrepreneurial networks as in the industrialized countries, and that new ventures need to build legitimacy along cognitive and socio-political dimensions that require different actions to influence different stakeholders, this study investigates empirically how business incubators facilitate their incubatees to build legitimacy in a context where resource and reputation conditions are weak. The purpose of this paper is to clarify how business incubators perform legitimacy-building roles effectively. Design/methodology/approach: A multiple case study of business incubators in Chongqing, a second-tier Chinese city, is presented. Using grounded theory, this paper draws its findings from a synthesis of interviews and secondary data of seven incubators and their ten incubatees. Findings: The legitimacy-building role of business incubators is performed well in this research context. Evidence is presented that incubators play different roles in building different dimensions of incubatees’ legitimacy. Government-associated incubators play a salient role in building incubatees’ socio-political legitimacy whilst non-government related incubators shape their incubatees’ cognitive legitimacy. Originality/value: This study contributes to the business incubators literature by revealing how incubators perform the legitimacy-building role when their resource endorsement is weak. The results suggest that incubators need to strengthen their ties with external stakeholders and that new ventures need to take key stakeholders into consideration when they select incubators to enter.
KW - Business incubators
KW - China
KW - Cognitive legitimacy
KW - Institutional endorsement
KW - New ventures
KW - Resource endowment
KW - Socio-political legitimacy
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85133956752&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1108/CMS-07-2020-0288
DO - 10.1108/CMS-07-2020-0288
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85133956752
SN - 1750-614X
VL - 17
SP - 829
EP - 850
JO - Chinese Management Studies
JF - Chinese Management Studies
IS - 4
ER -