UNIVERSITY BUSINESS INCUBATORS BEST PRACTICE: FACTORS AFFECTING THAILAND UBI PERFORMANCE

This research aims to investigate the best practice components affecting Thailand university business incubators’ performance. From the literature review, four main components were identified as having the correlations and influences on the performance of university business incubators: 1) Best practice in management and administration of the incubators, 2) Best practice in supporting services provided to incubatees, 3) Best practice in augmented services for technopreneur incubation and 4) Best practice in the selection of potential incubatees. The population of this study was the sixty-three Thai University Business Incubators (UBI) that were under the supervision of Thailand Office of the Higher Education Commission. The conceptual model and questionnaire were designed and developed in accordance with the literature review. The study employed purposive sampling, and questionnaires were distributed to the management of UBI across Thailand. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the UBI demographic data; Pearson Product Moment Correlation was used to analyze the correlation, and multiple linear regression analysis was used to find the influence among the independent and dependent variables. The results showed that there were positive correlation and influence among the four factors: management and administration of incubators, supporting services provided to incubatees, augmented services for technopreneur incubation and selection criteria of potential incubatees, to the performance of UBI. The findings also suggest that UBI lacked the capabilities in some of the best practice components; specifically, obtaining venture capital for the clients and a well-defined selection criteria. The findings can be used to develop and enhance the mentioned criteria in order to raise Thailand UBI’s performance to the highest level of best practice.