Business Incubators, Necessity vs Opportunity Entrepreneurs

The purpose of this research is to link the service offering and strategic objectives of a business incubator (BI) to a specific type of entrepreneur. It studies necessity entrepreneurs versus opportunity entrepreneurs. A new strategic scope of BIs has been outlined, that is the Scope segment. Furthermore, whereas extant literature suggests similarity of services among BIs, the available research shows that each type of entrepreneur uses and serves different service offerings and strategic objectives. Similarly, the profit-orientation objective adopted in the literature has shown to be too crude, and specific strategic objectives are linked to each type of entrepreneur. Two detailed service-based strategies for managers of BIs are created in addition to a detailed construct of BI services. Business incubation practices in a weak and vulnerable environment are studied. As a result, a better strategy to support less-favored entrepreneurs (Necessity Entrepreneurs) is suggested. A new scope in the BI strategic framework is revealed. The study addresses local and international socio-economic development actors interested in necessity entrepreneurship and business incubation strategies.