Abstract
Business incubators are argued to have been part of the entrepreneurial support scene since the 1950s. As such, the incubation literature has benefited from a long and rich research tradition, leading to a variety of studies that have examined the impact as well, as the efficiency of a variety of models covering the first-generation traditional real-estate models to other models like corporate incubators, virtual incubators, and the most recently hybrid incubators. The majority of them have been successful in bridging the problem of "newness" experienced by new ventures, and start-ups within Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), especially in Nigeria, have also not been overlooked.
Nevertheless, what is often not emphasised enough when discussing success factors is that an incubator's success factor is peculiar to the incubator type in the question and the context of its operation. Additionally, since incubator models, definitions, and companies supported change constantly, designing a unified success criterion that takes all these factors into account will be a herculean task. Managers have been identified as essential in mobilising the resources required by new ventures. Existing literature offers a very limited in-depth investigation into the role of managers in the business incubation evaluation process and even less insight into how SSA managers, especially in Nigeria, manage to support successful start-ups, despite the daunting contextual terrain.
As a result, this paper critically examines incubation support within the SSA context, focusing on Lagos, one of the most prominent technology ecosystems in Nigeria. In this paper, the management's perspective on incubation evaluation is presented to understand the role of the manager’s agency and support context in determining business incubator success. In this paper, incubator managers are identified as individuals who design incubation programmes and provide day-to-day support for new ventures within the ecosystem.
A case study approach was used for this research, which involved in-depth interviews with six different incubator managers playing major roles in the technology ecosystem. The findings generate critical success indicators, as well as contextual factors influencing the incubation of ventures in Nigeria. This paper not only enriches the existing literature on incubation. It also provides a nuanced insight into policy strategies that can guide business venture support in Nigeria and throughout SSA.