Business Incubation and Business Development in Kenya

The study was driven by the need to determine the roles of incubator manager entrepreneur profileand impact of business environment and that of business incubation process on business development in Kenya especially at the start-updevelopment and maturity phase.The study used a cross-sectional research designto solicit information from existing business incubators in Kenya.A random sample of two hundred incubating businesses/entrepreneurs and twelve incubator managers was selected.To test the hypothesesdata was subjected to factor analysis multiple regressionmultivariate analysis of variance and non-parametric tests.Although results from testing hypothesis were expectedit was discernible that the respondent entrepreneurial profile had no significant relationship with the incubation process.It was clear that disparities existed between how respondents rated the importance of business-incubation process with actual services received and surprisinglythey received fewer services than anticipated.As the incubation concept is relatively newclear macro policy guidelines would be necessary if the full potential of business-incubation is to be exploited to fully benefit the nation.