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University technology commercialization through new venture projects: an assessment of the French regional incubator program

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Abstract

This article assesses the performance of a technology business incubator program, established by the French government to support innovative new science and technology-based firms (NSTBF) that seek to commercialize laboratory research results. With a resource-based view and an institutional approach, this study predicts why some incubators may be more successful than others in supporting the development of NSTBF. An original longitudinal data set represents the results of a public incubator program, funded following the passage of a 1999 French law on innovation and research. The findings refer to a sample of 25 operationally active incubators and their 1200 graduated new ventures. This study contributes to the literature on business incubation by showing the importance of various incubator resource inputs for aiding NSTBF projects. It thus provides useful and timely feedback for researchers and policy makers.

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Notes

  1. See http://www.france.fr/en/knowing/research-and-innovation/competitiveness-clusters/article/business-incubation-and-high-tech-regional-hubs (Accessed 30 October 2011).

  2. Public incubators are technology-oriented structures that target government funding. According to the Agence Nationale pour le Développement et la Création des Entreprises (ANCE), in mid-1990s there were 210 business incubators in France, of which 100 were considered “true” business incubators (offering facilities and services) rather than property development ventures (OECD 1997). Another report estimated the number of incubators and pépinières in France at 314, of which 84 were business incubators ( www.mon-incubateur.com).

  3. The DIANE Database contains comprehensive information on companies in France, including data about company accounts, ratios, activities, scanned annual reports, descriptive information, ownership, and management for more than 1.3 million companies.

  4. That is, the number of companies that stated or disclosed that they took advantage of CIR.

  5. Common structures of private/public research are closely and perennially associated with medium- and long-term public and private researchers’ skills, revolving around the issues of the partner company.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Asma Guerfeli of University of Tunis for his technical assistance in the statistical analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. KEDGE Business School, Talence, France

    Zouhaïer M’Chirgui

  2. Toulouse University, Toulouse Business School, Toulouse, France

    Wadid Lamine

  3. School of Business, State University of New York, Albany, NY, USA

    Sarfraz Mian

  4. EM Lyon Business School, Écully, France

    Alain Fayolle

Authors
  1. Zouhaïer M’Chirgui
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  2. Wadid Lamine
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  3. Sarfraz Mian
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  4. Alain Fayolle
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Wadid Lamine.

Appendix

Appendix

See Table 4.

Table 4 List of French public incubators in 2009.
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M’Chirgui, Z., Lamine, W., Mian, S. et al. University technology commercialization through new venture projects: an assessment of the French regional incubator program. J Technol Transf 43, 1142–1160 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10961-016-9535-y

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