Assessing University Business Incubators and Universities Collaboration: Comparative International Study

Abstract

Research goal: The goal of this mater thesis is to assess the collaboration of Russian and World’s leading university business incubators with their host universities. Research tasks:  To review existing research body on university business incubation in general and research studies addressing collaboration links and networking in university business incubators (UBIs) in particular;  To develop a taxonomy and an assessment framework of collaboration links;  To identify the world’s leading UBIs and to apply the assessment framework to compare Russian UBIs with them;  To identify the most important collaboration links for UBIs and ways to build them;  To provide recommendations for Russian UBIs’ managers, university administrations, and policymakers. Research methodology: The empirical study was conducted using the online survey containing 56 questions (267 variables), which was answered by 19 Russian and 15 world’s leading UBIs. The results were compared and contrasted between the two samples, using descriptive statistics and cross-tabultaion. Correlation analysis was used to reveal the relation of various general, management practices, service provision and collaboration links variables to the performance outcomes of UBIs. The findings were supported with evidence from 3 semi-structured interviews with UBIs leaders. Main results: The integrated taxonomy of the collaboration links, designed by the author, serves as a main theoretical contribution of the study. The proposed taxonomy divides university business incubators and universities collaboration into three directions and five types of the collaboration content. As a result of the comparison of Russian and Top UBIs , the integrated collaboration benchmark based on the was suggested. The correlation analysis provided some important insights on the relation of different university business incubators management, governance, service and collaboration practices to their performance outcomes. In addition, the evidence from semi-structured indicated advantages and problems arising from the collaboration with universities as well as potential solutions to them. Overall, the findings of the quantitative and qualitative parts resulted into the managerial implications for Russian university business incubators’ managers specifically, as well as for university administrations and policymakers in general were suggested. These implications serve as the main practical contribution of this study.