The purpose of this paper is to understand the existing incubation practices and to develop suggestions for other incubations programs’ practitioners, by developing a benchmark study of outstanding Taiwanese university-based incubators (UBIs).
This research result is based on the methodology for generating a benchmarking from six outstanding Taiwanese UBIs and for other business incubators around the world.
According to this research result, the authors propose eight key performance indicators (KPIs): three for setting up and operating UBIs and five for incubator functions and services. Among those eight KPIs, the average set-up cost is US$595,000; the average number of incubatees is 22; the length of tenancy is four years; and the growth in incubatees’ turnover is around 15 percent.
Even the samples were outstanding UBIs in Taiwan; for future research, this approach might be applied to a bigger number of incubation centers or UBIs.
Many countries or areas still lack experience in setting up and running business incubators; therefore, practical advices for the managers are crucial for the success of these business incubators, and this benchmarking methodology can be applicable in some of those cases.
The benchmarking methodology for setting up the values of each KPI and the evaluation approach.
