This study examines how university-affiliated incubators and accelerators (UIAs) evolve and how they mediate between universities' internal missions and the demands of the external entrepreneurial ecosystem. Adopting an evolutionary perspective, we conceptualise UIAs as dynamic organisational interfaces whose development is shaped by processes of variation, selection and retention.
We employ a qualitative multiple-case study of five Italian UIAs operating in diverse regional contexts. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with senior managers, complemented by documentary sources and longitudinal archival materials. The analysis follows a Gioia-inspired methodology to reconstruct evolutionary trajectories within cases and identify recurrent configurational patterns across cases.
We identify three recurrent organisational configurations: embedded, adaptive and autonomous niche. These configurations reflect different combinations of university embeddedness, organisational autonomy, ecosystem engagement and spatial reach. UIAs evolve through non-linear and path-dependent transitions across configurations as internal strategic priorities and external ecosystem pressures co-evolve. The findings show that UIAs progressively develop greater strategic agency, moving from institutionally dependent support units to boundary-spanning actors that actively reorganise partnership structures and spatial ecosystems.
This study advances research on entrepreneurial universities, incubators and entrepreneurial ecosystems by introducing an evolutionary-configurational framework that explains how UIAs transform over time. It challenges static views of organisational autonomy, reframes incubators as strategic organisational actors rather than operational instruments of the third mission and highlights the spatially fluid and co-evolutionary nature of entrepreneurial ecosystems.
