Informal networks in business development services: case studies from two Brazilian business incubators

Introduction: The central idea of this paper is claiming business incubators as brokerage environments where entrepreneurs have access to resourceful actors. Brokerage relates to the development of bridging social capital (Knorringa, Staveren 2006) through which new information, ideas and resources circulate. The locus of these exchanges includes the internal environment of business incubators and external institutional settings, represented, for instance, by the local government and regulatory agencies. The main bridging actor between business start-ups and internal and external environments is the business incubator’s manager. These managers can actively foster an environment of exchanges that goes beyond the formalised strategic services of business incubators (i.e, regular consultancies) (Altenburg, Stamm 2004, Tötterman, Sten 2005). Part of these exchanges may become formalised in business partnerships in the medium and long run, building bonding ties between the actors involved. This longer term outcome may impact local development dynamics when businesses establish partnerships that strengthen their individual capabilities, for the deployment of local resources. This process characterizes a scenario of endogenisation, “the progressive development of local capacities and local control over an export base that was previously shaped by external factors and forces” (Helmsing 2010, p. 13).

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