Technology Business Incubators’Efficiency And Their Influences On The Regional Innovative Economic Development In China

From1980s onward, the numbers of incubator are growing rapidly all over the world, especially in the developing countries such as China, Brazil, Turkey and so on. By the end of2007, there are about600technology business incubators (TBIs) in China. According to Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology(MOST), China was ranked second to the United States in the world in terms of the number of TBIs. As one of the most important components of regional innovation system, Chines TBIs are more and more important for the establishment of innovation-oriented country, innovation-oriented region and innovation-oriented city. Although there are much research on the business incubators, there is little evidence on the efficiency of TBIs in different dimensions and the influences of TBIs on the regional economic development and regional innovative capability. Thus, it is necessary to study the efficiency of TBIs in different dimensions and there influences on the regional innovative economic development.Based on the incubator literature and theory, this paper divide the Chinese TBIs into four generations and five objectives. We used the SFA analysis to measure the efficiency of TBIs along the five objectives, i.e., the survival of incubatees, technology transfer, profit generation, local job creation and local economic development. Based on the efficiency scores of individual NTBIs in each dimension, we use the SPSS16.0as a tool to do the K-mean cluster analysis. Also, we use ANOVA and regressions analysis to study the corresponding determinants from the perspective of micro level of firms, medium level of incubators and macro level of regions. More specifically, at the micro level, we try to study the difference in product-harm crisis between incubator-on firms and incubator-off firms from the perspective of crisis management. At the medium level, we aim to apply the strategic niche management theory into the incubation situation and investigating the influences of the incubator managements on the incubation efficiency. At the macro level, we investigate the externalities of city on the incubation efficiency based on the Jacobs externality theory. Finally, based on the neoclassical growth theory and endogenous growth theory, we use the β analysis to investigate the influences of TBIs on the regional economic development convergence and regional innovative capability convergence. The conclusions are as follows:(1) The value of Chinese TBIs is generally low. More specifically, the efficiency in terms of accelerating the survival of new ventures and promoting regional economic development is higher than other dimensions, i.e., technology transfer, profit generation, and local job creation.(2) Based on the cluster analysis, Chinese TBIs can be divided into six typologies, i.e., PRO-oriented, SUR-oriented, publicly excellent, INNO-oriented, multi-inferior and ECO-oriented incubators.(3) The incubator-on firms do better than the incubator-off firms in terms of managing the product-harm crisis, which is helpful for the incubation performance.(4) The influences of incubator managements on the efficiency are complex. The external and internal networks constructed by the incubator managements both have negative impacts on the SRU-efficiency, INNO-efficiency and PRO-efficiency, respectively. This is consistent with what Peter et al (2004) called "bad networks". Furthermore, while the business assistance has a significant positive influence on the efficiency, the impacts of technical assistance are not significant. So the incubator managers are not sufficient to offer technology broke support.(5) The significantly negative relationship between incubator age and the incubation efficiency indicates that the newly established NTBIs in China have higher survival rate than their older counterparts.(6) The influences of externalities of urban are not significant, except FDI.(7) While the TBIs do not accelerate the regional economic development convergence, the TBIs accelerated the convergence in terms of regional innovative capability.The innovative points of this paper are as follows:(1) We measured the incubation efficiency in five dimensions, and identified incubators based on their real activities. Based on the cluster analysis, Chinese TBIs could be divided into six typologies, i.e., PRO-oriented, SUR-oriented, publicly excellent, INNO-oriented, multi-inferior and ECO-oriented incubators.(2) We applied the theory of niche manger into the incubation situation and investigating the extent to which the incubator managers act as the niche manager in incubators. More specifically, we attempted to evaluate the influence of expectations, networks, and learning constructed by the incubator mangers on the incubator performance.(3) We investigated the influences of TBIs on the convergence in terms of regional economic development and regional innovative capability. Although there are much research on the business incubators, there is little evidence on the influences of TBIs on the regional economic development and regional innovative capability.