Survey of Business Incubation

Detailed information for 2007

The survey mandate is to collect and benchmark vital information on the business incubator sector of the Canadian economy. The information is critical in assessing the business incubator sector and in developing programs to support them.

Data release - August 27, 2008

• Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s)
• Description
• Data sources and methodology
• Data accuracy

Description

The survey will provide collect data on the activities and benefits of business incubator sector. Aspects to be covered include affiliation; infrastructure; sources of funding; policies; clients and activities; services; impact; management; and barriers.

Reference period: Fiscal year

Collection period: September to December

Subjects

• Business adaptation and adjustment
• Business performance and ownership
• Innovation
• Science and technology

Data sources and methodology

Target population

The population of units actually covered are business incubators. A business incubator is a business unit that specializes in providing a variety of services ranging from providing space, services, advice and support, designed to assist new and growing businesses to become established and profitable. Incubators tend to be small businesses, but also include several government offices and universities.

Instrument design

The survey instrument is a questionnaire which was developed in consultation with Industry Canada and the Canadian Association of Business Incubators, along with input from potential respondents and comments from business incubator industry experts.

Sampling

This survey is a census with a cross-sectional design and a longitudinal follow-up.

Data are collected for all units of the target population, therefore, no sampling is done.

Data sources

Data collection for this reference period: 2007-10-31 to 2008-03-14

Responding to this survey is mandatory.

Data are collected directly from survey respondents.

Data were collected through implementation of a mail-out and returned questionnaire. Data was tracked, captured and edited via an in-house system. Follow-up was done via direct telephone contact with respondents

View the Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s) .

Error detection

Questionnaires were initially manually edited and outliers detected as they were received during collection. A series of edit rules were developed and invalid or inconsistent entries were corrected using these rules. Telephone follow-up was conducted for missing entries that could not be manually edited.

Imputation

This methodology type does not apply to this survey.

Estimation

This methodology type does not apply to this statistical program.

Quality evaluation

The Survey of Business Incubators was the first survey of its type collecting data on business incubators in Canada. Currently, there is no published data comparable to the data collected by this survey.

Disclosure control

Statistics Canada is prohibited by law from releasing any data which would divulge information obtained under the Statistics Act that relates to any identifiable person, business or organization without the prior knowledge or the consent in writing of that person, business or organization. Various confidentiality rules are applied to all data that are released or published to prevent the publication or disclosure of any information deemed confidential. If necessary, data are suppressed to prevent direct or residual disclosure of identifiable data.

Aggregated tabular data was released for this survey. Cells for which a domain had less than 3 respondents were suppressed.

Revisions and seasonal adjustment

This methodology does not apply to this survey.

Data accuracy

Coverage is a minor source of error. Survey is of all known and suspected, business incubators organisations believed to be performing in the business incubator sector of the Canadian economy.

A complete enumeration is carried out of known and suspected business incubators performers.

The response rate for the Survey of Business Incubators was 70%.