IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/entreg/v29y2017i1-2p116-136.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The social profitability of business incubators: a measurement proposal

Author

Listed:
  • Eloy Sentana
  • Reyes González
  • José Gascó
  • Juan LLopis

Abstract

Public business incubators are services placed at the disposal of original, generally newly-created projects, to which physical accompaniment, supervision and location are offered at prices below market value. They have as their aim to help set in motion and consolidate these firms during the stages in which they are weaker. The ultimate goal consists in favouring the generation of innovative firms, inducers of high-quality jobs, which can diversify the local business fabric, thus becoming a key tool in local development. The present paper provides a methodology to study the economic – but above all social – impact of business incubators, based on the examination of 40 from the 42 incubators existing in the Valencian Community (a Spanish autonomous region with five million inhabitants). Data analysis allows us to state that, although business incubators are not economically profitable since they need financial aids and public investment to start operating, they do have social profitability, insofar as the activity developed by entrepreneurs permits to provide public administrations – via taxes – with returns exceeding what was invested in these incubators. It has been determined that 2.8 euros (which can be applied to a variety of social areas) are collected via taxes for each euro spent to start them up.

Suggested Citation

  • Eloy Sentana & Reyes González & José Gascó & Juan LLopis, 2017. "The social profitability of business incubators: a measurement proposal," Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(1-2), pages 116-136, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:entreg:v:29:y:2017:i:1-2:p:116-136
    DOI: 10.1080/08985626.2016.1255436
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/08985626.2016.1255436
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/08985626.2016.1255436?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rosado-Cubero, Ana & Hernández, Adolfo & Blanco Jiménez, Francisco José & Freire-Rubio, Teresa, 2023. "Promotion of entrepreneurship through business incubators: Regional analysis in Spain," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    2. Photchanaphisut Pattanasak & Tanyanuparb Anantana & Boontarika Paphawasit & Ratapol Wudhikarn, 2022. "Critical Factors and Performance Measurement of Business Incubators: A Systematic Literature Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-39, April.
    3. Arta Antonovica & Javier Esteban Curiel & Beatriz Rodríguez Herráez, 2023. "Factors that determine the degree of fulfilment of expectations for entrepreneurs from the business incubator programmes," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 261-291, March.
    4. Klofsten, Magnus & Lundmark, Erik & Wennberg, Karl & Bank, Nata, 2020. "Incubator specialization and size: Divergent paths towards operational scale," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    5. Cristina Lin-Lian & Carmen De-Pablos-Heredero & José Luis Montes-Botella & Susana Lin, 2022. "The Influence of Entrepreneurial Motivation on the Valuation of Socioeconomic Benefits of Business Incubator Functions," Economies, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-21, November.
    6. Kameliya Deyanova & Nataliia Brehmer & Artur Lapidus & Victor Tiberius & Steve Walsh, 2022. "Hatching start-ups for sustainable growth: a bibliometric review on business incubators," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 16(7), pages 2083-2109, October.
    7. Angelo Cavallo & Antonio Ghezzi & Alessandra Colombelli & Gian Luca Casali, 2020. "Agglomeration dynamics of innovative start-ups in Italy beyond the industrial district era," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 239-262, March.
    8. Migliavacca, Milena & Patel, Ritesh & Paltrinieri, Andrea & Goodell, John W., 2022. "Mapping impact investing: A bibliometric analysis," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:entreg:v:29:y:2017:i:1-2:p:116-136. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/TEPN20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.