Business Incubation for Small Enterprise Development: South African Pathways

Business incubation is a critical tool for ensuring the survival of start-up small enterprises. Over the past 15 years, South Africa has progressively expanded its commitment to business incubation as part of broader support for the small enterprise economy. The objective in this paper is to highlight the different pathways of contemporary business incubation occurring in South Africa with particular attention to the divergent trajectories as well as common challenges faced by the unfolding network of state-supported incubators and of private sector incubators. This paper extends the limited literature on business incubators in South Africa by offering detailed insight into the differences between incubators operating under state as opposed to private ownership. Methodologically, use is made of detailed case studies of four functioning business incubators as well as the results from a national audit conducted in 2013 of the state of small business incubators in the country.