ENVIRONMENTAL SCANNING IN INCUBATED AND GRADUATED FIRMS: influences of the activities and the stage of evolution of the firms

Abstract

Environmental scanning is the acquisition and use of information about the external business environment that can assist management in making decisions about the organization’s future courses of action. This article presents portion of the results of an investigation on 340 entrepreneurs in incubated and graduated firms. It was investigated if the entrepreneurs perceive their business environment and information sources differently and if they scan the environment more intensively considering their activities (if technological or not) and the stage of evolution of their firms (if incubated or not). It was discovered that technological entrepreneurs concentrate their attention in environmental events and trends which are more related to their activities, as compared with non-technological ones, which valorize more general environmental aspects. After finishing their incubation period, entrepreneurs tend to scan their business environment more intensively. While incubated, entrepreneurs find it easier to make initial contacts with personal and external information sources and consider the information acquired from these sources more relevant, which was credited to the mediation of business incubators and the social and informal learning networks that are formed. Academic and administrative implications are discussed and opportunities for future works are pointed out.