Business Incubation and Enterprise Support Systems in Restructuring Countries

After two decades of rapid growth, the United States business incubation industry has reached maturity with 530 incubators. In contrast, growth is still increasing rapidly in restructuring countries with industrializing and transitional economies, which have over 500 incubators. We present a situation analysis of incubators and enterprise support systems in these countries, and discuss the key success factors, based on trends of convergence of all initiatives into an integrated infrastructure. We then offer insights on strategically planning for the future, and policy guidelines useful to governments, international organizations, and local stakeholders that are planning, implementing and managing incubator projects in restructuring countries.