Business Incubators And Sustainable Innovation

Innovative businesses are often the result of collective action of organisations involved in many-sided market structures, which can be found in and around business incubators or tech¬no¬logy centres. Within such frame environments, many group interests beyond those of single producers and their immediate clients exist and interfere. Rather generically, important economic outcomes of innovations are se¬quen¬ces of cost reduc¬¬tion events at the level of econo¬mic sectors, where the na¬ture of (sector-wise) technology is influencing the pace of these events. At the conceptual le¬vel, we describe the social learning and social innovation process which leads to sustainable in¬no¬¬va¬tion by means of the influence exerted by firms on each other within constrained envi¬ronments such as business incubators. These environments need not to be organized according to any sector logic. We propose that the influ¬ence exerted between firms is increasing in firm simila¬rity, in the degree of product com¬plementarity, and also to depend on (mutual) trust relations. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\r\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\nWe note that, very much in symmetry with the role of sustainability in society as a whole, in the world of firms and markets, the incubation process may be viewed as a "moderator," which attempts to overcome the disadvantages of highly paced, short-term oriented capitalist economies. In sections 2 and 3 a concept for representing the societal forces shaping sustainability and incubation for the innovating firm is described and ways of transforming the concept into concrete tools of assessment and valuation are pointed at. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\r\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\n