Success factors of university business incubators in Zimbabwe: staff perspectives on ecosystem orchestration in a resource-constrained environment

In the African context, university-affiliated business incubators are increasingly taking positions as key mechanisms for venture creation and facilitating technology commercialisation. Nonetheless, the existing evidence regarding what makes them effective continues to be largely shaped by research conducted in developed countries. This study draws on an entrepreneurial ecosystem and stakeholder perspective and adopts an interpretivist, qualitative exploratory design to explore what incubator personnel perceive as the critical success factors of university business incubators in Zimbabwe, and how they perceive these factors to relate to one another. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with five key informants drawn purposively from the country’s three operational university incubators at the time of the study. The collected data were analysed thematically. Five interconnecting themes emerged. These include (1) funding as the foundational success factor, (2) stakeholder ecosystems and partnerships, (3) technical and mentorship support based on university expertise, (4) monitoring and evaluation systems as a source of legitimacy, and (5) contextual constraints arising from macroeconomic instability and institutional fragmentation. The findings suggest that where resources are constrained, the university staff associated university incubator effectiveness less with sophisticated venture financing mechanisms than with stakeholder orchestration, institutional legitimacy and hybrid support ecosystems. Such factors connect and synergise university, government, donor and private-sector resources. Implications for universities, incubator managers and policymakers are outlined.