The role of business incubators in developing entrepreneurship and creating new business start-ups in Gaza Strip

Dissertant

Dahliz, Khalid Abd Abd al-Salam

Thesis advisor

Miqdad, Muhammad Ibrahim Husayn

University

Islamic University

Faculty

Faculty of Commerce

Department

Department of Business Administration

University Country

Palestine (Gaza Strip)

Degree

Master

Degree Date

2009

English Abstract

This research aims at identifying the role of business incubators in developing entrepreneurship and creating new business ventures.

It also aims at identifying and studying the business incubation initiatives, business fields suitable for business incubation, services provided of business incubators, and success factors and obstacles facing business incubators.

Another objective of the research is studying the level of entrepreneurship, the entrepreneurial characteristics, and the effect of demographic data & family profile on the entrepreneurial characteristics of university students in Gaza Strip.

The present investigation consists of literature review in subjects related to business incubator, provided services, success factors, faced obstacles, and adopted polices & criteria of incubation.

The literature review is also investigating entrepreneurship components, motivators, entrepreneurial characteristics, entrepreneurial process, and economic perspectives of entrepreneurship and business incubators.

The researcher makes use of different tools to implement this study: workshops, interviews, focus groups with experts and professionals and by designing a questionnaire to test entrepreneurial characteristics and intentions of university students toward entrepreneurship and to test their perceptions about business incubators in addition to demographic factors and personal profile of entrepreneurs.

The population of the study is the students in their final year of bachelor education in selected faculties and specializations in engineering, commerce, and information technology at the Islamic University of Gaza (IUG).

The questionnaire was piloted and tested for validity and reliability and data didn't follow the normal distribution.

Nonparametric test were used in the study.

Data was described and analyzed for the whole sample to take a general view and respondents were classified as entrepreneurially inclined and non-entrepreneurially inclined based on their desire to establish their own business after graduation from university.

The deep analysis of data based on the entrepreneurial inclination of respondent and their knowledge about business incubators reveals the following points: Nearly quarter of the students was entrepreneurially inclined and most of them are from the engineering faculty and the business administration department.

Selfsatisfaction is the primary motivation behind establishing own business and money is the most required resource for establishing business.

There were no differences between entrepreneurially and non-entrepreneurially inclined students regarding entrepreneurial characteristics but for business skills.

Two thirds of entrepreneurially inclined students were males, (26.2%) were the first child in birth order in their families.

There is no dependency between entrepreneurial inclination of students and their gender and faculty but dependency exist with academic specialization.

The entrepreneurial inclination of students is dependent with their father's occupation and independent with the education of their parents.

Academic courses and workshops were the most effective tools for disseminating knowledge about business incubators and no dependency exists between entrepreneurial inclination of students and their knowledge about business incubators.

Direct finance is the most important service to be offered by business incubators and the training in creativity and critical thinking is the most important in training services.

(44.2%) prefer to have a full partnership with the incubator for profit sharing and (58.6%) prefer to leave the incubator directly after achieving profits.

Information technology is the most preferred field for incubation and (45.5%) of respondents prefer to build the incubator in technology town.

Occupation, closure and siege were the most top ranked obstacles to the development and operation of business incubators.

It is recommended to build a national strategy and to achieve the cooperation from academic institutions in terms of establishing new academic plans, and the cooperation from local industry and private sector in order to support establishment and development business incubators.

Main Subjects

Business Administration

Topics

• Business incubators
• Business enterprises
• Palestine
• Gaza Strip

No. of Pages

186

Table of Contents

• APA
• MLA
• AMA

Language

English

Data Type

Arab Theses

Record ID

BIM-300356