Matching Items (3)
Description
Over the past few decades, businesses globally have advanced in incorporating the principles of sustainability as they strive to align economic outcomes with growing and complex social and environmental demands and opportunities. This transition is conditioned by the maturity, scale, and geographical location of a business (among other factors), with particular challenges placed on small enterprises in middle- to low-income communities. Within this context, the overarching research question of this dissertation is why and how business incubation processes may foster sustainable enterprises at the middle and base of the socioeconomic pyramid (MoP/BoP). To explore this question, in this project I used as a case study the experience of a network of social business incubators operated by Tecnologico de Monterrey, a private, non-profit, multi-campus university system in Mexico. Centering on its campus in Guadalajara and in order to understand if and how MoP/BoP businesses address sustainability, I developed a current state assessment of incubator processes, analyzing during two semesters the activities of incubated entrepreneurs and their goals, motivations, and outcomes. The general expectation at the outset of the study was that Tec's social business incubation process, in both its design and implementation, focuses on the economic viability and outcomes of incubated projects and hence does not promote entrepreneur commitment to sustainability goals and practices. The general approach of the research project involved a qualitative, in-depth ethnographic assessment of participants. Data were collected by means of the following research tools: (a) archival and documentary review, (b) participant observation, (c) surveys of participants (entrepreneurs and advisors/mentors), and (d) semi-structured interviews of participants. The overall design of the research was inspired by the transitions management approach and by the intervention research method, while qualitative results were assessed under the grounded theory approach. Results of the research are reported under three general categories: (a) analysis of entrepreneur goals, motivations, and outcomes, (b) identification of social and environmental opportunities, and (c) review of the role of social networks and broader support structures. While results confirmed the general expectation of the study, it was possible to establish (based on the interaction with the entrepreneurs and other actors) that there is both interest and commitment to identify and explore opportunities in social and environmental issues. Thus, the dissertation concludes with a proposal for potential future interventions in this social incubator, exploring a new vision and strategies for a transition to a more sustainability-oriented approach. Finally, key recommendations define the most critical elements of an agenda for transition in the social incubation process at Campus Guadalajara and provide input for other efforts.
ContributorsWood, Mark Williams (Author) / Redman, Charles L. (Thesis advisor) / Wiek, Arnim (Committee member) / Basile, George M (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
With various gaps remaining in business incubation literature, developing scales that capture the multi-dimensional constructs of the incubation process remains a necessity. While living and traveling within Brazil, this author journeyed within Brazil's well-developed incubation ecosystem in order to investigate the reproducibility and validity of scales whose authors propose measure the constructs that capture the process of business incubation which were defined in their options-driven theory of business incubation as "selection performance", "monitoring and business assistance intensity", and "resource munificence". Regression analysis resulted in the data suggesting that there is no statistically significant predictive ability of the Hackett and Dilts scales when used to predict incubatee outcomes from this study's sample of incubators. The results of the analysis between total score in each of the three constructs and incubatee outcomes suggested that when the total score within the construct of selection performance increases, there tends to be a decrease in incubatee outcomes where the incubatee was surviving and growing profitably at the time of its exit from the incubator. Also, there tends to be a decrease in incubatee outcomes where the incubatee was surviving and growing on a path toward profitability at the time of the incubator exit. The results show no predictive ability of the remaining two constructs of "monitoring and business assistance intensity" and "resource munificence" to capture business incubation performance. The item specific analysis of all correlating and inter-correlating variables for each of the dependent variables, resulting in several significant relationships, however, many demonstrate negative relationships which also run contrary to the relationships proposed by Hackett and Dilts. These results have challenged both the validity of the Hackett and Dilts scale as a tool for investigating the constructs of the incubation process, and the ability of the options-driven theory to explain and predict business incubation outcomes.
ContributorsBejarano, Thomas (Author) / Grossman, Gary (Thesis advisor) / Waissi, Gary (Committee member) / Parmentier, Mary Jane (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
This research explores and deepens our understanding of an element of arts infrastructure in the United States: the arts incubator, an organizational form or programmatic initiative that exists at the intersection of artistic production, entrepreneurship, and public policy. The study is a qualitative cross-case analysis of four arts incubators of different types: Arlington Arts Incubator, Intersection for the Arts, Center for Cultural Innovation, and Mighty Tieton, situated within the context of the literature of arts incubators, business incubator evaluation, and a theoretical framework for understanding entrepreneurship in the US arts and culture sector.
The research opens the black box of incubator operations to find that arts incubators create value for client artists and arts organizations both through direct service provision and indirect echo effects but that the provision of value to communities or systems is attenuated and largely undocumented. Arts incubators, like many small arts organizations, tend to look retrospectively at outputs rather than at the processes that convert inputs to tangible impacts, or means into ends. This is an issue not relegated only to the arts and culture sector; business incubators share some of these tendencies. Despite these issues, arts incubators remain a potentially impactful tool of cultural policy if their processes and activities align with their strategic goals and those processes and activities are assessed formatively and summatively.
The research opens the black box of incubator operations to find that arts incubators create value for client artists and arts organizations both through direct service provision and indirect echo effects but that the provision of value to communities or systems is attenuated and largely undocumented. Arts incubators, like many small arts organizations, tend to look retrospectively at outputs rather than at the processes that convert inputs to tangible impacts, or means into ends. This is an issue not relegated only to the arts and culture sector; business incubators share some of these tendencies. Despite these issues, arts incubators remain a potentially impactful tool of cultural policy if their processes and activities align with their strategic goals and those processes and activities are assessed formatively and summatively.
ContributorsEssig, Linda (Author) / Schugurensky, Daniel, 1958- (Thesis advisor) / Fahlman, Betsy (Committee member) / Shockley, Gordon (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015