Achieving optimal distinctiveness in incubation markets: Hierarchy of needs perspective

As competition intensifies, business incubators face conflicting pressures: the need to conform to market prototypes to gain legitimacy while also differentiating themselves from peers to avoid competition. Optimal distinctiveness (OD) theory explores how organizations manage this pressure to gain l...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inTechnovation Vol. 136; p. 103084
Main Authors Li, Yonghui, Guo, Hai, Wang, Donghan
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Elsevier Ltd 01.08.2024
Subjects
Configuration
Hierarchy of needs
Incubator
Multidimensionality
Optimal distinctiveness
Hierarchy of needs
Multidimensionality
Configuration
Optimal distinctiveness
Incubator
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Summary:As competition intensifies, business incubators face conflicting pressures: the need to conform to market prototypes to gain legitimacy while also differentiating themselves from peers to avoid competition. Optimal distinctiveness (OD) theory explores how organizations manage this pressure to gain legitimacy and achieve superior performance. This study introduces a hierarchy-of-needs perspective to categorize the services provided by incubators into two dimensions: generic service market infrastructure development (MID) addressing basic incubatee needs, and customized service business capability development (BCD) catering to specific needs. We empirically investigate how new private incubators in China strategically position themselves along these dimensions to pursue OD. Furthermore, we discuss the configurational effects of MID and BCD distinctiveness, alongside contextual conditions, identifying four paths to achieving high performance. These findings offer fresh insights into the orchestration view of OD by developing a new categorization of strategic dimensions from a hierarchy-of-needs perspective, as well as elucidating their individual effects and contextual contingencies. •Incubators must balance conformity and differentiation for optimal distinctiveness.•Study introduces hierarchy of needs for generic and customized incubator services.•Four strategic paths identified for high performance in different contexts.•Distinctiveness in services impacts incubator success based on audience needs.•Contextual factors influence incubators’ strategic positioning and performance.
ISSN:0166-4972
DOI:10.1016/j.technovation.2024.103084