A sustainable perspective of the value outcomes of incubation: preliminary findings from Southern Brazil

Value creation assessment is a fundamental topic for the literature deepening on business incubation. However, it must be oriented to a value approach beyond the economic outlook and from an alternative angle to the value creation processes. To this end, the study investigates the value outcomes of incubation, first by applying the laddering technique as a decision process-tracing method to observe the value outcomes of incubators in terms of sustainability dimensions; second by developing a framework - considering strategic target users, innovation objects and sustainability dimensions - applied to incubatees to reveal how they perceive their value outcomes according to those framework elements. The findings show a significant asymmetry of managerial views between incubators and incubatees. For incubators, value outcomes of an economic nature still prevail over other dimensions, whilst incubated companies reveal more concern in positively impacting further sustainability dimensions with their innovation offering.