Description model for goals of corporate incubators

Corporate incubators are created by established companies to develop radical innovations outside the existing core business. While they have become a widespread phenomenon in practice, research is still scarce. Many corporate incubators fail at achieving their self-set goals. Therefore, this paper proposes a description model that explains valid goals for corporate incubators and their interaction. In a first step, goals are identified from a theoretical perspective following the PATZAK method of systems modelling. These goals are then clustered into topical categories. After analysing the goals and categories for redundancies and conflicts, a description framework is developed and validated. The main categories are innovation, technology and R&D objectives, investment objectives, human re source objectives, procurement as well as culture and image objectives. This framework may be used in the early phases of configuring corporate incubators. It may also lay groundwork for future studies on success factors of corporate incubators.