Organizational Training in Startups: The Incubators Perspective in Turbulent Times

Abstract

The flourishing of younger and innovative organizations (start-ups) has never stopped. To grow, start-ups need capital and access to the market, and are often incubated by business incubators (hubs), which offer several services, both educational and practical, essential to enable the transformation of business ideas into concrete business projects. Disruptive times certainly affect the way start-ups are trained and empowered, mixing in-house and remote learning; nevertheless, incubators still deliver their valuable training to new organizations. This contribution intends to explore this change addressing the incubators (trainers) perspective,and to provide a practical contribution to the management literature on training process shifts across startup. A qualitative case study analysis was used in this research. It involves a combination of both secondary data and semi-structured interviews with the Incubatore SEI – a business hub based in the Campania Region – CEO and founder. This study focuses on distinct skill areas that influence startup empowerment processes: (1) individual knowledge, (2) organizational knowledge, (3) observable skills, (4) problem-solving skills, (5) attitudes and beliefs. This study emphasizes the need of change inventive training procedures amid crises, as well as the relevance of highly innovative hubs in delivering their training to startup. Furthermore, research reveals intriguing insights for the growth of incubators as well as intriguing perspectives for the future of the startup ecosystem through continuous empowerment.