Resource Utilization in New Incubation Models: Makerspaces, Hackathons, and Start-up Competitions as Pacemakers of New Venture Development

This study analyses the provision and utilization of resources in makerspaces, hackathons, and start-up competitions from a practice-based view. Using an inductive, qualitative approach for theory building, the paper investigates how new incubation models provide buffering and bridging mechanisms and how start-ups utilize and transform these available resources. Building on organisational sponsorship and bounded rationality theory, our findings shed light on two discrepancies: (1) the provision and intended use of resources vs. start-ups’ utilization of these resources; and (2) the expectations of start-ups vs. their actual experience in new models of start-up incubation. Although we can see that start-ups indeed use some resources in line with incubators’ intentions, we also find that they only use some of the offered resources while rejecting or transforming others. Start-ups seem to shop around to select resources that they evaluate as most useful or most enjoyable. While our data indicates that this utilization of resources is a consequence of their bounded rationality, we also suggest that new incubation models are able to mitigate these limitations through specific support mechanisms. By analysing the new phenomena of makerspaces, hackathons, and start-ups competitions in entrepreneurial ecosystems we offer a more nuanced view of the supply and utilization of resources in organisational sponsorship.