An international perspective of the business incubators' perception about business model canvas for startups

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/tie.22112
• Date: 01 September 2020
• Published date: 01 September 2020
• Author: Luísa Carvalho,Simone Galina,M. Isabel Sánchez‐Hernández

CASE STUDY

An international perspective of the business incubators'

perception about business model canvas for startups

Luísa Carvalho

1

| Simone Galina

2

| M. Isabel Sánchez-Hernández

3

1

Department of Economics and Management,

Institute Polytecnhic of Setúbal and CEFAGE,

University of Évora, Setúbal, Portugal

2

Department of Business, School of

Economics, Business and Accountancy of

Ribeir~

ao Preto, Ribeir~

ao Preto, Brazil

3

Business Organization and Sociology

Department, School of Economics and

Business Administration, University of

Extremadura, Badajoz, Spain

Correspondence

Department of Economics and Management,

Institute Polytecnhic of Setúbal and CEFAGE,

University of Évora, Campus do IPS,

Estefanilha, Setúbal 2014-503, Portugal.

Email: luisa.c.carvalho@esce.ips.pt

Abstract

This work aims to approach the reasons for Business Incubators (BINCs) to replace

Business Plan by Business Model Canvas (BMC) for creating and accelerating the

startup process. The main value of this study lies in its empirical appliance to test the

adoption of business modeling for startups in two different entrepreneurial ecosys-

tems. A qualitative approach has been used in analyzing two case-studies, one from

Brazil (Supera) and the other from Portugal (Fabrica). The method used was inquiring

into the managers' impressions when helping to create startups and accelerating their

development. The analysis was based on the data obtained from interviews and sec-

ondary data through a content analysis technique supported by ATLAS ti 7.0 soft-

ware. The findings highlight how the use of BMC is bringing real opportunities for

the development of nascent businesses. Furthermore, the perceptions of the BINCs

studied suggest the adequacy of this model to startups due to their flexibility, user-

friendliness, and capability to manage innovation, communicate, and share business

logic.

KEYWORDS

business incubator, business model, canvas, case study, startups

1|INTRODUCTION

Research on startup strategies frequently differentiates types of strat-

egy by content characteristics, analyzing types of strategy and, by pro-

cess characteristics, related to how the strategy is formulated and

implemented (Rauch & Frese, 2000). This study is focused on the pro-

cess of action strategy considering that, on the one hand and from the

theoretical point of view at least, Business Model (BM), and more spe-

cifically Business Model Canvas (BMC), is developed before the crea-

tion of the startup, in order to clarify the value for creation processes

(Osterwalder, 2004), especially for new technology-based firms

(Andries & Debackere, 2007). On the other hand, in practice, BMC is

considered an important tool for strategy operationalization

(Cortimiglia, Ghezzi, & Frank, 2016) and it may be used to minimize

the problems that entrepreneurs have for translating original business

ideas and new venture goals into actions to achieve such goals,

improving performance.

Nowadays, Business Incubators (BINCs) may support startups to

suit the creation of their business. BINCs support nascent businesses

in building BMC and provide knowledge and training to early entre-

preneurs. Currently, BINCs are replacing the (traditional) Business

Plan (BP) with BMC (Blank & Dorf, 2012) because the BM encourages

the entrepreneur to conceptualize the venture as an interrelated set

of strategic choices (Morris, Schindehutte, & Allen, 2005).

However, it is not clear why and how they do this, as, as far as

we know, it is not possible to find any study about this relation

between BINCs and early entrepreneurs in the creation of BMC.

Besides, it is also poorly understood how BINCs evaluate BMC use

for startup creation and acceleration. This gap in the literature about

BMC and the expansion of its use justified this research.

Therefore, this article has a twofold purpose. First, it aims to pro-

vide a better understanding about the use of the BMC for creating

and accelerating the startup process in the BINCs in two entrepre-

neurial ecosystems (in Brazil and in Portugal). Second, this work tries

DOI: 10.1002/tie.22112

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