The role of business centres in firms' networking capabilities and performance

An extensive stream of literature has studied incubators, however, few researchers have focused on business centres, which typically host a broader set of firms, including medium- and low-tech firms. This paper studies the role of business centres in the networking capabilities of their residents and the impact of residence at a business centre on performance. While we find the networking capabilities of business centre residents to be more developed than those of non-residents, this mainly seems to originate from a selection mechanism, with business centres attracting residents with greater networking capabilities. The impact of residence at a business centre on a firm's performance is less obvious. While we find that residence at a business centre has a (marginal) positive effect on employment growth, no significant impact was found for revenue growth. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.