The Survival of Gauteng-Based Businesses after Business Incubation

Abstract

Business incubation influences the long-term development and expansion of emerging enterprises in Gauteng, specifically their market sustainability following graduation from an incubation programme. The research problem investigated was that the long-term influence of business incubation practices on the survival of businesses post graduating from a business incubation programme is not traceable. A qualitative inductive approach employing semi-structured interviews was utilised. The focus was on incubatees who completed the incubation programme and have been out of the programme for more than six months. Data was also obtained from incubation practitioners using focus group interactions with a snowball sampling strategy. The business incubation theory examined the survival strategies to determine the relationship between incubation services and post-incubation entrepreneurship. The research findings indicate that incubators promote the development and market expansion of emerging entrepreneurs’ post-incubation. A further analysis revealed that incubators remain deficient in mentoring strategies and securing of funding. This recommended that the development of a post-incubation monitoring and evaluation system is key for business incubators in Gauteng and the incubation programme should not only offer technical training, but also integrate the services of the incubatees into supplier development initiatives offered by their multinational stakeholders. Incubatees’ businesses can be given preferential consideration by the incubator’s stakeholders in the provision of services required by them.

Key Words: Business incubation, post-incubation, emerging businesses