The Mediating and Moderating Role of Business Start-Up and Government Regulations
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sustainability Article Role of Business Incubators as a Tool for Entrepreneurship Development: The Mediating and Moderating Role of Business Start-Up and Government Regulations Cai Li 1, Naveed Ahmed 1,* , Sikandar Ali Qalati 2, Asadullah Khan 3 and Shumaila Naz 4 1 School of Management, Department of Management Science & Engineering, Jiangsu University, 301 Xuefu Road, Jingkou District, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu 212000, China; [email protected] 2 School of Management, Department of Marketing, Jiangsu University, 301 Xuefu Road, Jingkou District, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu 212000, China; [email protected] 3 Department of Business Management, Karakoram International University Gilgit, District Gilgit 15100, Pakistan; [email protected] 4 Faculty of Business and Management Sciences, The Superior College 20 km riwand Road, Lahore 54000, Pakistan; [email protected] * Correspondence: [email protected]; Tel.: +92-31-5755-8899 or +86-186-5288-5337 Received: 15 January 2020; Accepted: 21 February 2020; Published: 28 February 2020 Abstract: Business incubators create value by combining the entrepreneurial spirit of start-ups with the resources that are typically available to new businesses. It is widely recognized that knowledge-based entrepreneurial companies are the main creators of economic growth, and such enterprises require special business development services. Therefore, the study aims to examine the role of business incubators in providing greater services (networking services, capital support, and training programs) in entrepreneurship development. Secondly, it also examines the mediating and moderating role of business start-up and government regulations for entrepreneurship. Using a quantitative methodology, we examine 567 samples through structural equation modeling. We find that the business incubators are playing an effective mediating role in providing networking services, capital support, and training programs to individuals and entrepreneurs, which are significant for entrepreneurship development, whereas business start-up positively mediates the relationship between networking services, capital support, training programs, and entrepreneurship development. Government regulations for entrepreneurship have a direct effect on entrepreneurship development. More importantly, government regulations for entrepreneurship have a positive moderating effect between business start-up and entrepreneurship development. Our study identifies the critical resources needed to improve the quality of business incubators and to ensure the availability of such resources to improve entrepreneurship development. Keywords: business start-up; capital support; government regulations for entrepreneurship; networking services; entrepreneurship development; training programs 1. Introduction The present study is being carried out in Pakistan, which is a developing country and the sixth-largest country in terms of population, with 2.55% of the world’s overall population. It is worth noting that Pakistan’s population is important because its core parts are still young [1]. According to the total population report, in Pakistan, 60% of young people are under 30 years. However, the majority of the population in the country is poor and unemployed, as the country’s daily income is less Sustainability 2020, 12, 1822; doi:10.3390/su12051822 www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability Sustainability 2020, 12, 1822 2 of 23 than USD 1.25, indicating that poverty in Pakistan is increasing. An economic survey shows that 24.3% of Pakistanis live below the poverty line [1]. Most repugnant about this situation, which worsens every year, is that in the long run it will prove a threat to Pakistan’s economy [2]. Unemployment is one of the most common obstacles to sustained and viable economic growth. The increasing rate of unemployment is the same among professional degree holders and other labor force. The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics 2018 shows that Pakistan’s labor force input rate is 54.4%. According to these statistics, 3.7 million people were unemployed from 2017 to 2018 [3,4]. A large amount of the labor force steadily increases, and also the increase in joblessness continues; therefore, new employment opportunities should also be created. [5]. The Economic Survey of Pakistan shows a 5.6% unemployment rate in Pakistan, which encourages street crime, unemployment, and corruption. One of the reasons why entrepreneurial activities are not progressing is due to the lack of participatory conditions. It can be avoided if students acquire business training that will enhance their business skills, attitude, and knowledge. Such skills and knowledge increase not only self-employment but also employers’ work [6] To maintain a stable economy, the government needs to promote entrepreneurship because of entrepreneurship’s contribution to developing and developed countries and advanced economies. The literature suggests that substantial economic growth should be linked to entrepreneurs who use state investment for knowledge creation. Entrepreneurship is a key source of economic revolution, job creation, and business development; hence, it is pivotal to attract the young and educated to become entrepreneurs. According to Schumpeter, entrepreneurs are willing and able to turn new ideas or inventions into successful innovations. The idea that entrepreneurship leads to economic growth is one explanation of the remaining parts of the theory of endogenous growth, so it continues to be debated in academic economics [7]. Nowi´nskiand Haddoud [8] reported that in the field of entrepreneurship, a key attribute that needs to take root in every new venture is the intention to start a business. Thus, entrepreneurial intention concerns the individual’s attitude towards starting a new business. They further explored that entrepreneurship is even more suitable once there are fewer jobs in the labor market. Storey [9] found that knowledge of entrepreneurship will be beneficial when new graduates cannot find their ideal jobs or fall back when the economy slows, forcing some new graduates to turn to entrepreneurship. Also, Akinbola, et al. [10] claim that students’ propensity for entrepreneurship is an essential framework for forming a business start-up. Students’ attitudes, behavior, and entrepreneurial compassion may encourage the intention and desire to launch new business activities in the future. Students trained in educational institutions or in incubators are on the way to becoming initiators of successful entrepreneurs. Therefore, the concept of the business start-up among students is a vibrant field that has to be further discovered in order to understand and appreciate the practice of starting new businesses [11]. Another educational program recognized by various higher educational institutions to promote entrepreneurship is the business incubation program. Business incubation can provide resources for start-ups such as networking services, office space, training programs, consultancy, and other essential services, but it also aims to promote intranets and knowledge transfer between start-ups. The tendency towards entrepreneurial behavior can be positively influenced by several aspects such as business incubators and internships [12]. The existence of a business incubator in a higher education institution is vital to support and assist primarily students who have a business to be able to expand and advance their business activities. In addition, business incubators also help motivate new entrepreneurs to turn their business ideas into real businesses. In order to assess the possible benefits of a business incubator (BI), it is essential to explore the effects of services provided by the business incubators on entrepreneurship development [13]. In Pakistan, there are many universities, including public and private universities, that offer courses in different specialties. Some of these institutions help provide inventive business ideas and reduce unemployment. Graduates of limited universities in Pakistan are less competitive than foreigners. Still, start-ups are in full supply; nevertheless, Pakistan even now suffers from the shortage Sustainability 2020, 12, 1822 3 of 23 of capital, and the value of getting capital from nongovernmental sources is very high because of their grasping nature. In addition, entrepreneurs here lack the entrepreneurial skills and financial support needed to successfully conduct business in this globally competitive business environment [14]. As a way of guiding strong economic growth, the number of incubators around the world is increasing, so governments and other agencies that support these incubators are paying more attention to assessing their performance [15]. There are a large number of university students in various fields of expertise in Pakistan. Some of them have excellent, innovative, and appropriate ideas, which can serve as development tools to support a weak economy and reduce unemployment. These business ideas show high potential for success if they are provided with logistics and financial support. The majority of Pakistani business people cannot market their ideas or get the funding they need. They do not even have the required set of business skills, though they have the required information [16]. Over time, it was gradually recognized that innovations and entrepreneurship are most important to boosting Pakistan’s economic growth. Therefore, measures are being taken to extend science and technology initiatives to improve the economy. The efforts to