A fuzzy AHP to prioritize enabling factors for strategic management of university business incubators: Resource-based view

University business incubators (UBIs) are organizations designed to accelerate national economic development by assisting start-up firms, particularly new technology-based firms during their growth and development phase. The purposes of this study are to identify the enabling factors influencing the success of US's with respect to specific internal resources, and to explore the priority of these factors, using evidence from Thailand, an emerging market country. Two research questions were addressed: (i) whether resource-based enabling factors are applicable to Thai UBIs; and (ii) how varying the relative importance of these factors affects performance. A questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews with key stakeholders were conducted to determine the applicability of these factors. Resource-based view was used to identify enabling factors in four categories: human, technological, financial, and organizational resources. Thereafter, fourteen applicable enabling factors were prioritized using fuzzy analytic hierarchy process. Finally, based on the findings, managerial and policy recommendations were provided to enable more effective strategic decision making for promoting UBIs. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.