The micro-foundations of global business incubation: Stakeholder engagement and strategic entrepreneurial partnerships

This paper explores the micro-foundations of global business incubation by examining how stakeholders influence the development of technology business incubation platforms and entrepreneurial activities in the context of strategic entrepreneurial partnerships. By drawing from stakeholder theory, we propose a conceptual framework that articulates how stakeholder engagement—including local governments, universities, and business support organizations—varies over time by engaging with entrepreneurs in the form of collaborative partnerships. This paper investigates two technology business incubators in China and the UK through a comparative lens and offers empirical evidence to support its theoretical argumentation. From a temporal perspective, we found that different types of stakeholders play different roles in deploying three distinctive mechanisms—namely, initiating, orchestrating and partaking—during the developmental trajectory involved in the launch and development of entrepreneurial ventures. Importantly, from a micro-foundational perspective, we highlight the agency-orientated activities championed by entrepreneurial organizations situated in global strategic partnership contexts.