Background: Despite the prevalence of business incubators as platforms through which new ventures can be technically and financially supported, there is controversy on the extent to which a one-size-fits-all approach to business incubator support can be applied to all emerging or existing small and medium enterprises (SMEs).Aim: To explore the value addition and role of business incubators to assist entrepreneurs to grow their businesses to enable them to become entrepreneurial leaders.Setting: State of SMEs; Business incubators; the development of entrepreneurs in South Africa.Method: A literature survey regarding the nature of business incubators was conducted, making use of a convenience sample comprising a pre-published list of 58 business incubators.Results: Business incubators see themselves in a position of strength and are not in a true partnership with the incubatee. Most business incubators only support Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment candidates, ignoring the needs and value-add of a diverse SME population. Findings highlighted the conflicting information about the state of SMEs in South Africa, thereby calling for policies to clearly and uniformly report reliable statistics on the status of SMEs to enable more focussed support for SMEs.Conclusions: Business incubators must clearly conceptualise their own business operating model and articulate their value-add to prospective emerging entrepreneurs. Post COVID-19 it is essential to fast tract the sustainability of SMEs and role clarification and differentiating are two important factors that need to be taken into consideration by both business incubators and entrepreneurs to ensure focussed support and allocation of public and private funding.

Orientation: Poor intergenerational survival rate of family-owned agribusinesses is a matter of serious concern in family business literature. Ageing population of senior leaders and a lack of commitment from the next generation are often cited as the main contributing factors.Research purpose: The purpose of this research was to investigate the relationship between cognitive factors (self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intentions) and commitment of the next generation in family-owned agribusinesses.Motivation for the study: Family business literature is extensive regarding the phenomena of high failure rate amongst family-owned business, and agribusinesses are not immune to this phenomenon. However, previous research has focussed more on situational factors that relate to ‘contextual’ environment surrounding the individual, whilst little research has focussed on ‘cognitive’ (person-related) factors.Research design, approach and method: Following a positivistic paradigm, a cross-sectional design was followed using a quantitative self-administered questionnaire through multi-stage probability sampling, resulting in a sample of 125 next-generation individuals in family-owned agribusinesses. The data was subjected to an exploratory factor analysis and Pearson’s correlation test.Main findings: The results revealed that there was a significant relationship between self-efficacy, entrepreneurial intentions (person-related factors) and commitment of the next generation. Furthermore, the relationship between self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intentions was also found to be positively significant.Practical/managerial implications: A committed, willing and ready next generation is a prerequisite for effective succession in family businesses, given the expected exodus of a large cohort of senior leaders. Therefore, succession planning, especially from the successor’s side, needs effective management. Investment in career planning and development of the next generation is a step in the right direction.Contributions/value-add: Given the dearth of research exploring successor-related factors affecting succession, the current article adds to the literature by examining the relationship between person-related factors (self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intentions) and commitment (behavioural outcome) of the next generation within the realm of agribusiness development.