Incubation Center Awareness of New Technology-Based Firm Start-Ups

Abstract

Much of the research related to a business incubation center or the so-called incubator focuses on the study about the structure and mechanisms of an incubation center itself in order to create a new business. However, there are a small number of the studies that emphasize on requirements and cognition of those who are interested to establish a new business or incubatees. This research studied the antecedents, including incubatee's perception, incubator's resources and capabilities as well as other macro-level factors that enable new businesses against incubatee's awareness and intention to join an incubator. The results revealed that only 14 out of 188 respondents know what an incubator is. Nevertheless, there are 45 respondents showing interests to join an incubator to start up their own businesses. Those potential incubatees recognized opportunities from liberalisation of the ASEAN Economic Community and expected to gain easier access to technology, role model of entrepreneur, business consultancy, public relations for community adoption and entrepreneurship support services.