Pushing start-up on the market: what role for incubators?

Starting from the 80s, business incubators have been increasingly considered as relevant actors for public policies aimed at the development of the new ventures. In Italy, the law n. 221/2012 has pushed forward a renewed interest for this topic, since it introduces the idea of “certified” incubator of start-ups, by listing a set of requirements that qualify a “good” incubator. Despite the recent activity of the policy makers and the large number of scholars’ contributions, there is still a lack of understanding about how incubation processes impact on the development of the start-ups and there is not a clear assessment of the effectiveness of incubators’ contribution (Tavoletti, 2013) in the innovation landscape. Given this background, our research aims at understanding whether or not mediation services offered by certified incubators help start-ups to develop early business-relationships. We want to shed light on the link between the characteristics of incubation process and the development of early market-relationships of the hosted start-ups. This topic is particularly relevant as the creation of early market-relationships is considered a “critical” step in newventures’ development, due to both an under-developed marketing function (Aaboen, Dubois, & Lind, 2011; La Rocca, Ford & Snehota, 2013) and several liabilities that affect start-ups (Roseira, Ramos, Maia, & Henneberg, 2014). The paper is structured as follows: in the following paragraph we illustrate in brief the theoretical background; in section 3 we explain the research objectives; in section 4 we describe the research methodology; in section 5 the result of the survey are illustrated and analyzed; lastly, in section 6 we draw up some reflections and we outline theoretical and managerial implications, as well as the limitations of the research.