Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Stimulating Industrial Development in Uganda Through Open Innovation Incubators
Blekinge Institute of Technology, School of Planning and Media Design.
2013 (English)Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

Uganda’s economy is agro-based; although the country is land locked it has great potential for industrial development. It is well endowed with natural resources and salubrious climate, but with little success in transforming its agricultural and mineral wealth into processed commodities for local, regional and international markets. The Uganda’s National Development Plan 2010- 2014 and Uganda Vision 2040 call for a transformed Ugandan society from a peasant to a modern and prosperous country within 30 years. To achieve this goal, Ugandan economy needs to be industrialized. This need is one of the identified strategic bottlenecks. Various strategies and action plans have been developed to steer the country’s economy towards sustainable development and increased competitiveness but with little success. It has been recognized globally that economic development depends heavily on small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). SMEs are the prime source of new jobs and play a crucial role in income generation as well as in industrialization processes. However, most small businesses fail within their early stages of operation mainly due to under-capitalization and / or lack of proper management and business skills. Globally, through business incubators, start-ups and SMEs have been significantly enhanced to overcome their initial and critical stages of development. Business incubators have been tried in Uganda but not in a successful way. An Open Innovation Business Incubator is a physical or virtual environment that combines the attributes of open innovation and business incubation concepts in creating and supporting new start-ups. This research aimed at understanding more of the situation in Uganda, how the innovation systems and incubators are managed in other countries and to design a model for how to create better conditions for incubators in Uganda and similar low-income countries and stimulate industrial development. The proposed model has adopted an open innovation approach and a list of suggestions and recommendations has been made. Different methodological tools and participatory approaches were utilized in the process of undertaking the study to achieve the objectives. Data were collected through literature review, analysis of relevant theories such as industrialization, entrepreneurship, science, technology and innovation, business incubation, triple helix and clusters theory, open innovation, and public private partnerships. Review of Government reports and policy documents, discussions with industrial and incubation experts, surveys, focus group discussions and case studies were done. Useful ideas were obtained from seminars and conferences. Research findings indicated that: • There are hardly any graduate incubatees in Uganda, thus there is a need to foster partnerships and synergies between government, private sector/non-government organizations and academia for open incubation, • All incubators in Uganda focus on incubatees developing technologies and products but not on business models , • Open innovation incubators combined with entrepreneurial oriented strategies can effectively support start-ups and SMEs but requires strong mutual trust amongst actors, • Through public-private partnerships and open innovation incubators, industrial transformation can be stimulated.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Karlskrona: Blekinge Institute of Technology , 2013.
Series
Blekinge Institute of Technology Doctoral Dissertation Series, ISSN 1653-2090 ; 11
Keywords [en]
Clusters, Entrepreneurship, Innovation Systems, Industrialization, Open Innovation, incubators, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)
National Category
Business Administration Economics
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:bth-00565Local ID: oai:bth.se:forskinfo592761DB22B38040C1257BE4002ADAE2ISBN: 978-91-7295-264-5 (print)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:bth-00565DiVA, id: diva2:834399
Available from: 2013-11-27 Created: 2013-09-12 Last updated: 2018-05-23Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

fulltext(2210 kB)16349 downloads
File information
File name FULLTEXT01.pdfFile size 2210 kBChecksum SHA-512
f3446db052eb15b22c711daf7abdbb98d2f80081680ba329fe54c3135a710cb7e73fa2d48e9349bafe0abe195d5c77c09f911526a99e531a7dcda3e429355fae
Type fulltextMimetype application/pdf

Authority records

Mutambi, Joshua

Search in DiVA

By author/editor
Mutambi, Joshua
By organisation
School of Planning and Media Design
Business AdministrationEconomics

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar
Total: 16374 downloads
The number of downloads is the sum of all downloads of full texts. It may include eg previous versions that are now no longer available

isbn
urn-nbn

Altmetric score

isbn
urn-nbn
Total: 1137 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf