Digital Technologies supporting incubation processes: an analysis of Italian Incubators

Objectives: this paper investigates the digitalization level of Italian incubators in pre-Covid and Covid contexts, in the aim to understand how much strategic they consider digital technologies for their development and success. In particular, the research aims at understanding the typologies of technologies adopted, the extent of their usage to support the different phases of the entrepreneurial process, and the intensity of investments made along this direction. Prior Work: incubators play a central role for the creation of new ventures and the promotion of economic development of territories. The Covid-19 emergency made more difficult the incubation process of companies for the restrictions and limitations related to face-to-face relationships and physical meetings. At the same time, the rapid development and adoption of digital technologies may reveal an effective instrument to allow incubators for overcoming such difficulties and relaunch their activity, also during a pandemic period. Actually, digital technologies may represent a key lever for the strategic positioning of incubators, overcoming the geographical barriers and replacing the physical proximity with relational proximity. Accordingly, they can renew and revitalize the entire value chain of the incubators, by offering new configurations of operational activities that contribute to boost their competitiveness. However, it is still unclear how incubators can leverage these technologies to facilitate and support their incubation processes. Approach: we adopted a survey strategy by designing and delivering a questionnaire to incubators’ managers. We select the list of Italian certified incubators from the official register of the Italian Minister for the Economic Development, and we study each incubators website to retrieve information about location, size, and industry of reference. Results: results show that most of Italian incubators show a low level of digitalization, as they use very few digital technologies in limited incubation phases. Notwithstanding, some managers state that their digital level is slightly improved due to the COVID-19 diffusion and the limitations imposed by governments. Finally, four digital strategies pursued by Italian certified incubators were identified, namely: digital leaders, digital addicts, digital explorers, and digital laggards. Implications and Value: This research has implications for academics, practitioners and policy-makers. For the academics, the study extends the incubator research stream by including the digital-technology level and provides insights to increase their impact. Practitioners may use this research to understand how to increase the digitalization of their activities, thus enlarging their strategic and operational scope, and improving their performances. Policy-makers could use this research to define proper and more effective measures able to support incubators, as well as startups in their digital transformation processes.