Abstract
M.A. (Development Studies)
Business incubation is one of the avenues to improve the dismal performance of
small businesses in South Africa. This paper aimed to explore the ways in which
business incubators promote small business growth in Gauteng Province. The
research questions in this dissertation revolved around social networks within the
incubators, technology transfer and relationship between incubation management
and the partners. The dissertation was qualitative and adopted an explorative
research design to guide the study. In-depth interviews were conducted with twentyfive
participants across five business incubators in the region, of which five
participants were incubator managers. The results indicated that the support
services provided by the business incubators were crucial towards the development
of small businesses. Furthermore, these services acted as motivation for
entrepreneurs to access incubation facilities. Entrepreneurs also placed a high value
on the interaction with incubation management. This dissertation concluded by
noting that while business incubation results in positive outcomes for small
businesses, their services needed to be tailored to fit the needs of entrepreneurs at
the different stages in the incubation process. Also, there still existed a gap in the
literature on theoretical framework and the assessment of incubation facilities.