Exploring Incubation Performances and Its Determinants

In this paper, we explore the issue of academic incubators' performances. We first discuss how and why universities entered the business arena to extract value from the knowledge they were creating. We argue that Universities followed two different strategies: a simple goal versus a mixed goals strategy. This dichotomy has made the issue of measuring performances a tricky one. As far as performances in value extraction are concerned, huge differences exist. We suggest that available input resources are not a full account for explaining such differences. We argue that real commitment, specialization of resources and ability to modify and innovate internal processes can explain these differences. We use the Italian case as a test-bed for these assumptions.