European Journal of Business and Management www.iiste.org ISSN 2222-1905 (Paper) ISSN 2222-2839 (Online) Vol 4, No.10, 2012 1 A Comparative Study of Incubators’ Landscapes in Europe and the Middle East Dr. Hanadi AL-Mubaraki, Civil Engineering Department, College of Engineering and Petroleum, Kuwait University, Kuwait Tel: +965-9975-0790 Email: pro5383526@yahoo.com Dr. Michael Busler Richard Stockton College, Jimmie Leeds Road, Pomona, NJ 08240, USA. Tel: +1-609-442-4443 E-mail: michael.busler@stockton.edu Abstract This paper reviews literature on incubator models in Europe and the Middle East. We focus on four dimensions: 1) incubators graduate firms, 2) incubators goals, 3) incubators services, and 4) incubators client firms. The methodologies adopted in this study are literature reviews and case studies. The paper concludes four results. First, the total number of graduate firms that have emerged from incubator models in Europe (832) and the Middle East (43). This difference reflects a high rate of start-up companies inside the incubators that graduate a high number of companies. Second, incubators goals focus on fostering entrepreneurship, jobs creation and technology commercialization. Third, incubators services, tangible and intangible, are stronger in Europe than in Middle East models (medium). Finally, in Europe, the total number of incubators client firms is 391, whereas in the Middle East it is 68. We attributed this to the differences in years in which they were founded. Keywords: Technology incubators, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Economic development. 1. Introduction Business incubators act as an active tool to support the structure of new businesses and give them the assistance and support they need to grow (Rice and Matthews, 1995). The attraction of business incubation is based on their ability to generate jobs at a generally low public cost that remain in the community and lead to economic development (Molnar et al., 1997). The most important element of incubators in their early stages is tangible incubator services. Research shows that networking and clustering are the most important factors behind a firm’s success (McAdam and McAdam, 2008). Moreover, Al-Mubaraki and Busler (2012a) identified the roadmap for incubators as four strategic outcomes: (1) entrepreneurial climate, which 62% indicated was the primary purpose of their incubator; (2) commercialization technologies, indicated by 55.5%; (3) employment, 51.6%; and (4) innovation and diversifying local economies, 46.1%. The research adds value to current literature on sustainability of incubators and outcomes. The objective of this paper is to describe the incubators’ landscapes in Europe and the Middle East focusing on four dimensions: 1) incubators graduate firms, 2) incubators goals, 3) incubators services, and 4) incubators clients. The paper is structured as follows: Section 2 provides a thorough review of the literature on the details of incubator models. In Section 3, the research methodology includes successful multi-case studies, which describe a number of aspects of business incubation in Europe and the Middle East. In Section 4, the authors briefly discuss the findings of the study drawn from the analysis of comparison between models of European incubators and those in the Middle East. Section 5 concludes with implications of the incubators’ model in both regions. 2. Literature review In Finland, (Autio and Klofsten, 1998) examined the case studies of two incubators to assess their management policies. The findings stated that incubators are embedded in local context and their success could only be analyzed in the local settings. Success stories cannot be generalized. Practitioners should be careful in adopting policies that are found to be important in other incubators. However, Abetti (2004) investigated five case studies among 16 incubators in Finland as to their general assessment for survival rates, job creation, and sales growth. The survival rates reached 95%. The incubators received little funding from the government but were able to create highly skilled cost-effective jobs. For example, the government subsidy per created job was €6,450, which