BUSINESS INCUBATORS AS A FORM OF ENTREPRENEURIAL SUPPORT IN CROATIA

Business incubators represent one of the forms of support institutions for the development of entrepreneurship whose main purpose is to provide encouragement for the development of the overall business environment and provide the necessary prerequisites for the development of entrepreneurs in a particular area through the provision of consulting services, business space, information and other services. Business incubators are established with the aim of dynamising local and regional economic development, since the target group of incubators are companies from the area of their county or city, which meet the criteria for being accommodated in the incubator. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of business incubators in providing support to the small and medium-sized enterprises in the Republic of Croatia. The paper aims to present some of the basic characteristics of business incubators, their determinants and business practices, and to explore and analyse the range of services that incubators provide to their tenants. Also, the paper seeks to explore the basic business objectives, sources of financing, and to analyse the incubators' performance. Empirical data were collected through a survey questionnaire on a sample of 34 business incubators. The method of descriptive statistical analysis was used as the analytical method because the primary goal of this paper is to provide a detailed description of the current state, characteristics and operations of business incubators in the Republic of Croatia, and not to determine mutual dependencies or causalities between the observed variables.