"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."

"To identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of business incubator models and their potential use in worldwide. Methodology: We studied two international cases: (a) United States, (b) United Kingdom. Findings: The results highlight the similarities and differences between the countries. It adds knowledge for both academics and practitioners who are interested in business incubation. Value: This paper is the first to utilize the SWOT technique to analyze the business incubation field and provides recommendations to implement successful adoption of the incubator's strengths. The potential of Business Incubators who act as models in worldwide and their contribution to the economy, the active role they play in the local, regional and national economic development are discussed. Implications: Adaptation of a Business Incubator Model leads to (1) the support of diverse economies, (2) the commercialization of new technologies, (3) job creation and (4) increases in wealth, given that weaknesses can be overcome."

"Business incubators (BI) have been established worldwide as tools for company creation and small businesses support. BIs claim to help their tenants by providing them with the optimal conditions for increasing early stage survival and long-term performance. Practitioners and researchers agree that business support is a crucial feature of incubating businesses. Yet this is seldom researched. In this study we theoretically relate business support to help in solving problems and further investigate to what extent business incubators support their tenants overcome their developmental problems. Results show that tenants do not experience many problems and when they do business support is not necessarily sought. Furthermore, our data suggests that business support is not preferentially sought within incubator environments. When this happens, support provided by the BI does not contribute to problem solving. Finally, we discuss the impact of the type of BI on helping their tenants."

"A large share of the poor in developing countries run small enterprises, often earning low incomes. This paper explores whether the poor performance of businesses can be explained by a lack of basic business skills. We randomized the offer of a free, 48-hour business skills course to female entrepreneurs in rural Mexico. We find that those assigned to treatment earn higher profits, have larger revenues, serve a greater number of clients, are more likely to use formal accounting techniques, and more likely to be registered with the government. Indirect treatment effects on those entrepreneurs randomized out of the program, yet living in treatment villages, are economically meaningful, yet imprecisely measured. We present a simple model of experience and learning that helps interpret our results, and consistent with the theoretical predictions, we find that "low-quality" entrepreneurs are the most likely to quit their business post-treatment, and that the positive impacts of the treatment are increasing in entrepreneurial quality."

"Market Systems Development (MSD) is an approach to poverty reduction that aims to create long-lasting and large-scale change by stimulating more inclusive growth. To achieve a systemic change vision, market systems programmes often partner with the private sector to introduce new or improved business practices, products and services. Understanding the mechanics of these business models is at the heart of programme success. This paper presents a framework for assessing the efficacy of business models. To help future practice be grounded in reality, we have included detailed business model cases studies from market systems programmes in Afghanistan, Zambia, Kosovo and Nigeria. The paper ends by extracting five key lessons for implementers to improve the way in which they engage with the private sector in building 'win-win' models."

"Many Climate Smart Agricultural (CSA) technologies fail to achieve their full potential impact due to low levels of adoption by smallholder farmers and difficulties in scaling CSA. This paper presents how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can act as change agents for the uptake of CSA technologies where their business models may be seen as adoption and scaling mechanisms. Drawing upon our fieldwork in Punjab (India) during which over 100 respondents have been interviewed, critical issues and enabling factors for the business model of two types of SMEs, i.e. farmer cooperatives and individual service providers of climate smart technologies have been identified. Enabling factors supporting adoption are driven by scientific and practical evidence of CSA technologies, good partnership between SMEs and research institutes, good customer relationships and effective channels through farmers' field trials. Critical issues consist of distortive government subsidies on energy and the lack of market intelligence affecting the profitability of the business model. Scaling is enhanced through market intelligence and a favouring regulatory landscape. However, difficult socio-economic circumstances and distortive government subsidies limit the role of SMEs business model as mechanism for scaling."

"Management has a large effect on the productivity of medium and large firms. But does management matter in micro and small firms, where the majority of the labor force in developing countries works? We develop 26 questions that measure business practices in marketing, stock-keeping, record-keeping, and financial planning. These questions have been administered in surveys in Bangladesh, Chile, Ghana, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, and Sri Lanka. We show that variation in business practices explains as much of the variation in outcomes-sales, profits, and labor productivity and total factor productivity-in microenterprises as in larger enterprises."

"Business support interventions in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) direct a large amount of resources to SMEs, with the assumption that institutional constraints impede small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from generating profits and employment at the firm level, which in turn is thought to impede economic growth and poverty reduction. Yet despite this abundance of resources, very little is known about the impact of such interventions. To address this gap, this systematic review analyses evaluations of SME support services in LMICs to help inform policy debates pertaining to SMEs and business support services. This review examines the available evidence on the effects of SME support services in LMICs on firm-level performance indicators (such as revenues, profits, and productivity), employment generation, and labour productivity."

"The paper seeks to inform the reader with: An insider’s perspective of on-the-ground challenges faced in balancing the right mix of investments impact on missions of social enterprises [and] Recommendations that could help guide the growing social investment arena on how to support the development of sustainable social enterprises."

"Inadequate sanitation negatively affects the lives of billions of people in the base of the pyramid (BoP) in the developing world, and has a particularly substantial impact on the well-being of millions of young children. Given the magnitude of the challenge and the limitations of existing approaches, enterprise-led approaches to providing public goods are generating growing interest. Emphasizing convergent innovation, enterprises targeting the BoP are presented as potentially sustainable and scalable interventions that generate positive poverty-alleviation effects. Yet our understanding of who is affected, and how, remains limited. To begin to address this gap, we apply a multidimensional framework to an urban-based, sanitation-oriented BoP enterprise, focusing on its poverty-alleviation effects on young children. Our analysis indicates that the enterprise's effects include changes in capability, economic, and relationship well-being and that these changes can be positive or negative. We also find that the impact varies depending on the role of the stakeholder in the business model and the age of the child. Our results contribute to a better understanding of how to assess the effectiveness of a sanitation intervention and how to evaluate the poverty-alleviation implications of an enterprise-led approach."