Methodological challenges and institutional barriers in the use of Experimental Method for the evaluation of business incubators: Lessons from the US, EU and China

Abstract

Despite their worldwide adoption by policy makers as the Holy Grail for entrepreneurship and business development, the effectiveness of business incubation programs remain elusive, primarily plagued by untenable evaluation methods. This paper develops an in-depth analysis on those methodological and institutional factors that prohibit the use of theoretically sound solutions such as the Experimental Method in evaluation practice.