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Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues Open access
Journal Impact FactorTM (2025) 1.5 Q3
Journal Citation IndicatorTM (2025) 0.25 Q4
Received: 2025-05-18  |  Accepted: 2025-09-24  |  Published: 2025-12-30

Title

Four-stage incubation model for university innovation and entrepreneurship incubator: an empirical study


Abstract

Aiming at the problems such as service homogenization and ambiguous stage intervention in current university innovation and entrepreneurship incubation platforms, this research constructs a four-stage incubation model of "seedling selection - seedling planting - seedling cultivation - seedling transplantation". Grounded in the resource-based theory, life cycle theory, and service-dominant logic, this study uses 130 projects from the incubation platform of Guangzhou Vocational and Technical University of Science and Technology as samples and conducts empirical tests through methods such as multiple linear regression and hierarchical regression. The results indicate that the core service elements in each stage (for example, the precision of creative screening in the seedling selection stage and the technical resource support in the seedling planting stage) have a significantly positive impact on the outputs of the corresponding stage (such as the passing rate and the prototype iteration speed). The stage assessment mechanism plays a positive moderating role in the service transmission effect. This model has increased the three-year survival rate of projects by nearly 20 percentage points. This research offers references for improving the theory of university incubation and enhancing the practical effectiveness.


Keywords

university innovation and entrepreneurship incubation platform, entrepreneurship incubator, incubation model, resource allocation, incubation performance, empirical study


JEL classifications

O30 , L26


URI

http://jssidoi.org/jesi/article/1368


DOI


Pages

188-206


Funding

This research was funded by Special Research Project on Higher Education of Guangdong Higher Education Society for the Year 2024: "An Analytical Study on the Paths and Mechanisms of the Influence of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Education in Universities on Students' Entrepreneurial Competence" (Project No.: 24GNYB5).

This is an open access issue and all published articles are licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Authors

Ye, Zuolong
University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China https://ustc.edu.cn
Lyceum of the Philippines University, Manila, Philippines https://www.lpu.edu.ph
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Hernandez, Alexander A.
Lyceum of the Philippines University, Manila, Philippines https://www.lpu.edu.ph
Articles by this author in: CrossRef |  Google Scholar

Chen, Yulin
University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China https://ustc.edu.cn
Articles by this author in: CrossRef |  Google Scholar

Liang, Dongdong
Guangdong Peizheng College, Guangzhou, China http://www.peizheng.edu.cn
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Journal title

Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues

Volume

13


Number

2


Issue date

December 2025


Issue DOI


ISSN

ISSN 2345-0282 (online)


Publisher

VšĮ Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Center, Vilnius, Lithuania

Cited

Google Scholar

Article views & downloads

HTML views: 1003  |  PDF downloads: 744

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