Resumo

NANI, GV. Challenges faced by business incubators in one city council in Zimbabwe: Perceptions of council administrators. JCMAN [online]. 2018, vol.15, n.1, pp.344-367. ISSN 1815-7440.

This article investigated how the administrators of one selected city council in Zimbabwe perceived the challenges faced by its business incubators. The study was motivated by the fact that since the adoption of the idea of business incubators as a strategy of mentoring entrepreneurs, only one person had graduated. A qualitative case study was the selected design. Participants were identified through the snowball sampling technique. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were used to solicit data from council administrators knowledgeable in the administration of council incubators. Findings revealed that the selected council had barely achieved its objectives due to an unfavourable and highly competitive economic environment, a lack of access to scientific and technology expertise and facilities, inadequate sources of sustainable funding and inadequate screening of prospective incubatees. Conclusions were that the deteriorating Zimbabwean economy had impacted negatively on the operations of incubators and that administrators had also failed to timeously embrace technology for their business incubators. Implications were that council administrators should continue to lobby the government for subsidies. Further recommendations were that council administrators were to focus on the incubation of technologically driven business ideas to enhance the competitiveness of small and medium entrepreneurs in the global market.

Palavras-chave : Competitive; environment; incubators and technology.

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