Abstract

MOTLHAUDI-BANDA, Gail. Incubatee performance: The impact of public business incubators in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa. JCMAN [online]. 2025, vol.22, n.1, pp.1-24. ISSN 1815-7440.  https://doi.org/10.35683/jcman1091.295.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY: SMMEs play a significant role towards countries' GDP and economies. However, SMMEs tend to fail before becoming established. As such, initiatives such as business incubators have been established to support the successful development of SMMEs. It is key to investigate the actual impact that business incubation support has on the incubated SMMEs. Consequently, the purpose of this research is to determine the impact of public business incubators on the performance of the incubatees in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa.. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: A qualitative methodological approach was used. Semi-structured face-to-face focus group interviews were conducted with 17 business incubatees across the four public business incubators in the Northern Cape Province, and the data were analysed, interpreted and coded using ATLAS.ti. FINDINGS: The findings of the study were reported thematically. The public business incubators were shown to contribute to the incubatees' performance mainly through the provision of elementary support services needed to start the businesses. However, incubatees lacked the support of significant services needed to operate the business optimally. RECOMMENDATIONS/VALUE: The study responds to the body of literature on business incubator impact on incubatees' performance and provides the Northern Cape public business incubators with significant recommendations on how to better contribute to the enhanced performance of their incubatees. MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS: The business incubators should align their support services with the particular needs of the business incubatees in order to best support them and make a significant impact towards their overall business performance. These needed support services move beyond the primary ones currently offered by the Northern Cape first-generation public business incubators, towards more advanced and impactful ones. JEL CLASSIFICATION: L26

Keywords : Business incubatees; business performance; Northern Cape Province; public business incubators; SMMEs.

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