Edinburgh Napier University

  The study explored the role of the Integrated Business Incubation System (IBIS) in addressing the business and technical services needs of new nascent entrepreneurs. It is the desire of the Government of Trinidad and Tobago’s to provide a comprehensive nurturing environment for new Small and Micro enterprises (SMEs) while acting as a vehicle for growth and development. They envisaged this will enhance the link between entrepreneurship and development, supporting and encouraging the emerging entrepreneur and driving economic growth.

The researcher conducted twelve interviews with incubated clients of the IBIS programme, to explore the global best practices of incubators of their service needs and to investigate if they can adequately facilitate new nascent entrepreneurs in Trinidad and Tobago. The qualitative approach used allowed for direct interface with the incubatee and provided a rich source of evidence of key services required providing a mix of business and technical services that sought to expand the service reach of the IBIS programme.

It was concluded from the study, that there should be more structured recruitment of clients towards sector specific areas, developing an entrepreneurial culture and greater technology innovation support. Jones & Parry (2011) wrote about this and share similar views. The new evidence helped shape the development of a conceptual framework of services that can guide the new entrepreneurial client along a development path that proposed to be more efficient and effective than what was obtainable in the past.

The key practice contribution of this research is the opportunity it may provide to improve the operational effectiveness of the IBIS programme through the expansion of services. The prospective conceptual framework could provide a more structured approach to incubating clients, as it takes into consideration all types of entrepreneurs whether the business is product or services oriented, introducing a new technology process area that carries the entrepreneur through different stages of development. The significance of this is the progress of the entrepreneur can be measured in their growth and success and this can help to instigate less chances of failure occurring.