Kapinga, Alsen Florian; Montero, Calkin Suero; Mwandosya, Godfrey Issac; Mbise, Esther Rosinner
Description:
Women entrepreneurs are key players in the economic development of societies in
Sub-Saharan Africa. However, research has reported that business and technology
incubators offer insufficient support to their enterprises. Consequently, this paper sets
out to explore and highlight the present status of the contribution of business and
technology incubators to women entrepreneurs’ businesses. The study collected data
through exploratory focus group discussions, in-depth interviews, and structured
questionnaires. The data were analysed and interpreted using the convergent parallel
method. The findings indicate that business incubators provide women’s business with
training and to some extend enhance their access to market information and business
networks. However, the study also finds a lack of contextualisation in the business and
technology incubators’ services to the real needs of the incubatees, which eventually
makes their support less impactful. In this light, the study recommends the provision of
incubators’ services tailored to the real needs of women businesses. Our work puts
forward recommendations to support women entrepreneurs’ business development
through the contextualisation of the incubators’ services tailored to the incubatees’ real
needs including appropriate training beyond business management. Further
investments for establishing new incubation centres are also recommended.