Insight into government managed technology business incubators in the west of China: a comparative analysis

We present a comparative analysis of government managed Technology Business Incubators (TBI) in the west of China. 2 TBI in Chongqing and 2 TBI in Chengdu are chosen to make case studies. Our paper aims to find out whether government fully financed TBI is more expansion oriented than self financing TBI and whether the former performs better than the latter. Our contribution consists in adding some new variables in Mian's (1997) integrative assessment framework of TBI, filling a literature blank in missing the analysis of government governed TBI in the west of China, and providing insight into management and operational policies, services and performance outcomes of the four sampled TBI. We find that government fully financed TBI are more expansion oriented in terms of incubation surface and the diversification of incubation parks, and perform better in pooling funds, fostering ventures, generating total income and cluster effect than self financing TBI. Self financing TBI is better in human resources
performance (measured by the ratio of incubator management personnel to total ventures) and service income than government fully financed ones.