From Incubation to Sustainability: a Case-Study of Graduated Companies in Portugal

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to discuss business incubators as a new way to boost companies and create jobs in a very competitive economic context. From a sociological perspective inspired by concepts such as those of “network” and “social capital”, we analyse the entrepreneurial ecosystem as an instrument to overcome challenges during post-incubation. A qualitative research based on a multiple case-study in companies formerly incubated at the Science and Technology Park of the University of Porto (UPTEC) was conducted to analyse the impact of incubation on graduation and growth. The research objective was to understand the importance of business incubators for business sustainability. Our findings show that companies from the UPTEC were strengthened during incubation, particularly as a result of available low cost services and the reproduction of their networking context through the implementation of business communities after incubation.

Sustainability Skills and Sustainable Natives: Key Competencies and Maturity Model for Sustainability Management

“…Based on this organizational nature of advanced sustainability management involving experts from different parts of an organization, specific measures of sustainability management and the key skills that are required for proficient implementation may evolve towards new core competencies (Hull et al, 2022), which often will be related to a firm's existing core competencies in traditional processes and business models. As such, these sustainability-based core competencies may provide the basis for a sustainable competitive advantage in industries and ecosystems which are increasingly dominated by sustainability and ESG as key drivers of competitiveness (Cunha-Alegre & Parente, 2022;Nikolaou et al, 2019).…”