Business incubation guidelines and open innovation

Open innovation (OI) is the actual framework for doing innovation. Business incubators are OI places because beyond the office space and other services, they ensure networking and facilitate OI collaborations both inside the incubator among entrepreneurs and outside with external stakeholders. Thus, instead of playing a mere passive role, incubators now facilitate OI for their inhabitants by providing relevant services. The “Business Incubation and Open Innovation ABC” as the guidelines for business incubators are one of intellectual results in the project “Open Innovation, No1.1.1.2/VIAA/3/19/426” funded by Postdoctoral Research Support Aid programme of Latvia. This article identifies the structure of national business incubation (BI) guidelines focusing on BI process through OI approach, namely partners, competences, strategies (inside-out and outside-in), sustainability. The article reveals the incubation and OI trends based on: 1) the literature review and 2) empirical qualitative research. The empirical qualitative research comprised: 1) national business incubation service analyses from OI perspective, 2) the international practice analysis of incubation programmes at Aalto University, Finland, and TalTech in Estonia, based on eight expert interviews, and 3) national business incubation expert and management (23) focus group discussion results. The pandemic facilitated the online cocreation, co-petition, and collaboration in business incubation. Although business incubators reorganized their cycle and services, incubator operators, managers and tenants still lack the overall recognition of OI approach in BI, even though, OI activities are practised. This article provides national BI guideline’s structure as a novelty for business incubation practitioners, academia, entrepreneurship support policy makers and tenants explaining business incubation role, OI practices and strategies applied to business incubation and incubators as OI partners.