How Business Incubation Dimensions Drive Entrepreneurial Outcomes: Longitudinal Evidence from a Small Island Developing State
- AIOR Admin
- 5 hours ago
- 1 min read
Inshan Meahjohn
The University of Trinidad and Tobago, Trinidad and Tobago
This study examines which dimensions of business incubation, services, mentorship, finance, and physical space most effectively drive entrepreneurial outcomes in a Small Island Developing State (SIDS). It addresses two documented gaps: the dominance of cross-sectional designs in incubation research and the complete absence of peer-reviewed empirical evidence from the Caribbean. A quantitative repeated-measures longitudinal panel design was employed across three annual waves (2017-2019), using 106 entrepreneurs enrolled in the uSTART business incubator at the University of Trinidad and Tobago, representing 90.6% of the total incubator population. A validated 50-item structured questionnaire measured four incubation dimensions as predictors and four entrepreneurial outcomes, job creation, new venture creation, entrepreneurship development, and economic growth as dependent variables. Four OLS regression models were estimated alongside a repeated-measures descriptive trajectory analysis. Mentorship emerged as the dominant and statistically significant predictor across all four outcome models (β = .43-1.94), with its strongest effect on economic growth. The overall model explained 57% of variance in entrepreneurial outcomes (R² = .57), while job creation achieved the highest single-model fit (R² = .699). Longitudinal trajectories reveal dramatic progression, with outcome indicator means rising from M = 1.00 at Wave 1 to M = 4.27-4.85 at Wave 3 on a five-point scale. This study provides the first longitudinal evidence of business incubation effectiveness from the Caribbean, with full population coverage. Findings reveal mentorship primacy in a necessity-entrepreneur context where experienced entrepreneurial role models are structurally scarce, with direct implications for incubation program design and economic diversification policy in small states.
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