Supportive Policy Intervention in Incubating Innovative Enterprises for the Creation of a Self-Reliant Economy

Abstract

Incubating innovative enterprises has become a key success factor for the progress of emerging economies. A systematic outlook of how incubators are established, funded and what determines their tenant firm’s success has become the need of the hour. This study examines the service portfolio of incubators and assesses the role of government policies in supporting the incubation of innovative enterprises. Employing a purposive sampling technique, 50 incubators and 50 start-up firms in South India are chosen, and smart PLS 3.2.9 is used to validate the proposed GIIE model (Government Incubating Innovative Enterprises). Parameters such as incubator’s criteria for selecting tenants, factors affecting a firm’s affiliation decision, government schemes for incubators and SERVQUAL of incubators are studies that corroborate the developments across emerging economies such as the National Innovation System in Taiwan, customized incubation arrangements in Brazil and so on. The study concludes that business incubators are enablers of enterprise building, trustees of policy grants and facilitators of incubation services. An Incubator Benchmark Assessment Toolkit is recommended through this study to grant funds only to those incubators that meet the benchmark criteria and provide not only capital and infrastructural support but also mentoring assistance, which was found to be lacking as reported by the study’s tenant firms. The study implies strategic coupling of policy support in incubating innovative enterprises for achieving self-reliance.