A comparative study of two European business incubators

The aim of this article is to contribute to the literature on the management of SME support arrangements, such as new business incubation programs, by presenting two European case studies of such arrangements. In the case studies, we have tried to identify management practices that seem to work well in both cases. The literature abounds with "success stories" of for example individual science parks but such stories tend to have two major shortcomings. First, what constitutes success is seldom defined. Second, it is difficult to determine to what degree this success depends on local factors and to what degree it can be attributed to the management practices of the support arrangement. This study discusses the management practices of these two arrangements against the background of their regional settings.