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"Do business accelerators add value? If so, how? We investigate these questions by focusing on Start-Up Chile, a government-backed ecosystem accelerator. Using a regression discontinuity design, we show that entrepreneurship-schooling services of accelerators can significantly increase new venture performance by improving the entrepreneurial capital of participants. We speculate about the existence of four performance-enhancing mechanisms: greater social clout, the provision of an accountability structure that induces entrepreneurs to articulate and reflect about specific strategic tasks, an increase in self-efficacy, and know-how about building a start-up. We find no support for causal effects of basic services of cash and co-working space."

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"Working on myriad cases of inclusive business projects over the past five years, we have gathered deep insights to be able to create and test a robust tool that works in the context of Bangladesh. The goal of the publication is to inspire social ventures adequately serve the bottom of the pyramid by leveraging this robust framework, which allows for a detailed list of factors ensuring viability, sustainability and scalability.

Focus has invariably shifted towards building sustainable models where we work not in isolation, but hand in hand with entrepreneurs, investors and organizations to explore new markets, discover more customers, and, in the process, transform lives of the underserved 2.7 billion. The solution lies in bringing them as an integral part of the market economy, create employment and convert them into consumers; not keep them in fringes of the informal economy."

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"This report describes the landscape of business incubators and accelerators in the UK, exploring the scale and distribution, both geographically and sectorally."

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"Since the last decade, the revolution in information technologies and liberalisation of trade regimes have created enormous opportunities for knowledge-based businesses as well as challenges for planners to create the one billion new jobs now needed the world over. The business incubation centre (BIC) helps tackle the obstacles faced by entrepreneurs and facilitates the venture creation process. While numbers are increasing - to around 3,500 worldwide including over 1,500 in the developing countries - their performance and sustainability are being questioned. The determinants of success in the Olympiad of venture creation can be expressed as five interlinked rings: public policy that stimulates entrepreneurial businesses and provides the business infrastructure; private sector partnerships for mentoring and marketing; knowledge base of learning and research; professional networking, national and global; and community involvement to promote entrepreneurism and cultural change. This paper outlines the distinguishing characteristics of incubators in selected developing countries. Based on recent experiences, good practices and the lessons (to be) learned are drawn. Case examples from China, Brazil and other developing countries indicate the variety of approaches."

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"The express objective of Beyond Dialogue was to help corporations and social enterprises learn more about the ways they could partner with each other to achieve shared goals for sustainable and inclusive business, and to spark new collaborations...This report seeks to answer this desire of event participants by recording and reinforcing the most salient points and stories raised during Beyond Dialogue. It aims to distil useful insights and lessons mainly through a selection of case studies shared by event participants that will allow readers and practitioners to derive what is most relevant and suited to their context and sector. It will then analyse the key findings and lessons from the case studies before concluding on future opportunities for learning and collaboration. This report will hopefully lead to more proactive efforts to develop and expand partnerships that aim to improve the lives of people living in poverty, and to demonstrate how these partnerships can be designed to support both business and social impact goals."

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"In an effort to offer greater insight into the practice and utility of capacity building support, this report explores common forms of capacity-building support used by impact investors, many of which resemble forms of nonfinancial support historically leveraged by conventional investors. While both impact and conventional investors use capacity-building support to strengthen the underlying businesses of investee companies, impact investors also use it to enhance and extend their impact. This report outlines various needs that impact investors address through capacity-building support, the ways they structure and deliver such support, and funding strategies used for deploying such support."

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"The objective of this research report is to help practitioners understand what systems change means in the context of social entrepreneurship, how it is distinct from direct service or “business-in-a-box” models and, most importantly, what it looks like in practice – not as lofty exhortations and abstract concepts, but as a set of concrete activities, processes, and leadership lessons. Our intent is to move beyond systems theories – which, while useful, can be difficult to apply in a practical context – and instead tell the stories of how these theories can be applied across a range of circumstances. These stories follow six for-profit and non-profit social entrepreneurs in the Schwab Foundation network, working in education, health, consumer rights, land rights, rural development and the informal economy, as their strategies evolved beyond organizational scale – growing the reach of a prescriptive, organizationally designed solution to a problem – to systemic scale, with the goal of shifting the rules, norms and values that make up social systems."

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"The purpose of the Beyond the Binary project is to understand and articulate why corporate venturing should matter to corporations and how they might deploy their underutilized capital in pursuit of both profit and purpose. This will involve a deeper understanding of why some companies are holding this cash while others are spending it. It also involves telling the stories of those businesses who are successfully unlocking cash reserves by sharing first-hand accounts, through video interviews with the CV practitioners themselves. Ultimately, this project aims to create long-term impact by inspiring more corporations to allocate more of their capital towards corporate venturing activities which align with the SDGs."

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"In this paper, we propose an overarching incubator model that synthesizes elements and best practices emanating from the five archetypes empirically identified and also incorporates substantially higher economies of scale and scope, as well as global and local (gloCal) knowledge arbitrage potential. This paper presents an architectural blueprint for designing a gloCal, real and virtual network of incubators (G-RVIN) as a knowledge and innovation infra-structure and infra-technology which would link entrepreneurs and micro-entrepreneurs with local, regional, and global networks of customers, suppliers and complementors and thus help not only bridge, but also leverage, the diverse divides (digital, knowledge, cultural, socio-political, etc.)."

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"Investors and capacity development organizations have an opportunity to support women-led small and growing businesses, but they lack information. The purpose of this collaborative research project is to provide information to capacity developers and investors who want to better understand and address the barriers to growth for women-led small and growing businesses (WSGBs)."

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