Supportive Government Policy as a Mechanism for Business Incubation Performance in Nigeria

Abstract

Business incubation programme has been adopted by numerous countries globally. Its adoption has been related to its performance and actual contribution to entrepreneurship development. Studies have acknowledged the role of incubation programme to different spheres of national economy. In spite of the positive side of incubator model, there is still a contradiction concerning incubation performance in the developing countries, especially, Nigeria. This study aims to examine the contribution of government policy on the relationship between the critical success factors (CSFs) and incubator performance in Nigeria. Questionnaires were distributed to a sample size of 153 respondents from a population of 253 incubatees. The Partial Least Squares (PLS) software was used to analyze the data. Government policy as a moderator did not show a significant moderation relationship between the CSFs and incubator performance. The study recommends that future studies should integrate this quantitative approach of data collection with the qualitative method. Also, as the value of the coefficient of determination is 46%, future research should look at other factors which may likely increase the variation in performance explained by (or accounted for by) the variation in the CSFs.