7. Discussion
From the analysis of the findings it was evident that the regional and organisational contexts of the two universities were found to impact upon the incubation models adopted. Concurring with prior research (Amorós et al., 2013; Harris et al., 2013; McAdam et al., 2014; Varis et al., 2014), being located within a peripheral region was considered to have both advantages and disadvantages. The peripheral region under study had a devolved government which was said to lead to faster decision making and easier access to public funding for incubation activities due to less competition compared to the central region. However, as noted by McAdam et al. (2012) the emergence of local enterprise partnerships in other regions was aimed at encouraging university incubation models to become more self-sufficient. Indeed, the findings suggested that the peripheral region was experiencing a resource dependency issue (Frooman, 1999; Miller et al., 2014) in relation to government support for incubation processes in comparison to more central regions. Referring to Fig., 1 and drawing upon Mitchell et al. (1997) and Frooman (1999) government were seen to have stakeholder power, legitimacy and urgency therefore had high salience over the incubation activities of both universities. Furthermore concurring with Miller et al., (2014) it was reported that government had the power and legitimacy to use withholding and usage strategies (Frooman, 1999) in relation to the funding they provided for incubation activities in the two universities. It was noted by the TTOs that both universities could spin out companies without help from the government but that such financial support was crucial in terms of longevity and progression beyond the incubation stage of development. As such, the peripheral region was considered to be in a constant stage of government (stakeholder) power (Frooman, 1999; Mitchell et al., 1997) as seen in Fig. 1, due to the provisions of state funding needed for incubation within both universities. These empirical findings provide new insights as to the influence high salience stakeholders on incubation models (Hackett and Dilts, 2004; Alsos et al., 2011) and questions regional policy which dictates that incubation should involve co-creational models where government, industry, end users and universities interact interdependently (Ivanova, 2014; Carayannis and Rakhmatullin 2014; RIS, 2014). Prior research identifies that power relationships will always exist when stakeholders are engaged in resource relationships (Frooman, 1999; Mitchell et al., 1997; McAdam et al., 2012; Miller et al., 2014). Consequently, there is a need for mechanisms to ensure stakeholders can reach a stage of high interdependence involving symmetrical net exchanges of resources to support incubation (Frooman, 1999; McAdam et al., 2012).
