Incubator performance: an efficiency frontier analysis

Lise Aaboen, Peter Lindelof and Hans Lofsten

International Journal of Business Innovation and Research, 2008, vol. 2, issue 4, 354-380

Abstract: Assessments and evaluations of incubators has been a topic of discussion for as long as incubators have been in existence due to the fact that there has not been an agreement on how to determine good performance. This paper demonstrates the use of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) when studying performance of incubators. More specifically, it does so within the four dimensions of cooperation with universities, business networks, external funding and competence development on a sample of 16 Swedish incubators. We show that DEA enables us to measure non-numerical dimensions, and to simultaneously take into account the efforts made by both the incubator and the outcomes. Moreover, DEA provides benchmarks and, based on a model that divides the incubators into four different groups, illustrates the difference between the benchmark and the incubators' current situation.

Keywords: incubators; incubator performance; data envelopment analysis; DEA; utility; capabilities; universities; business networks; external funding; competence development; Sweden; benchmarks. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=18585 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ids:ijbire:v:2:y:2008:i:4:p:354-380

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Business Innovation and Research from Inderscience Enterprises Ltd
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sarah Parker ().