Perhaps you may find this paper interesting.

Peña (2004) "Business Incubation Centers and New Firm Growth in the Basque Country" Small Business Economics April 2004, Volume 22, Issue 3-4, pp 223-236

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/B:SBEJ.0000022221.03667.82#page-1

If you substitute word accelerator for incubator then there are quite lot of articles and also doctoral thesis. One of them is Amezcua (2010), "Boon or Boondogle? Business Incubation as Entrepreneurship Policy"

I suggest works from S. A. Mian, Sean M. Hackett & David M. Dilts, R. Grimaldi & A. Grandi, E. G. Carayannis & M. vonZedtwitz, M. vonZedtwitz & R. Grimaldi, R. Aernoudt

They provide an interesting overview of different conceptualization and cycles of incubators/accelerators

Thanks for all suggestions! I am aware there is substantial work on incubators, but the question is whether accelerators are substantially different concept from incubators to warrant special attention?

The differences between incubators and accelerators are indeed marginal: accelerators tend to select and support somewhat more mature ventures, that have already demonstrated first commercial successes. Other than that, designing an accelerator is similar to designing an incubator. In a study published in JPIM (2008) we developed several design principles for university spinoff creation that can be generalized to all incubation/acceleration systems:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227536704_Creating_University_SpinOffs_A_ScienceBased_Design_Perspective*?ev=prf_pub

These principles were recently also validated in a paper by Phan et al., published in AMLE:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237794878_New_Developments_in_Technology_Management_Education_Background_Issues_Program_Initiatives_and_a_Research_Agenda?ev=pub_cit_inc

Article Creating University Spin‐Offs: A Science‐Based Design Perspective*

Article New Developments in Technology Management Education: Backgro...

Hi Ivan, currently I am working on a innovation project and I found several interesting articles about the impact in Brazil of incubators, accelerators and start up contests. Are you familiar with Portuguese language? If not, let me know and I can check the main reference within them to foreign literature

Cassiolato, J. E. (2010, December). Mecanismos de apoio à inovação no Brasil: uma breve nota crítica. Parcerias estratégicas, 15(31), 75-82.

Franco, J. F., & Uchida, K. K. (2009, October). Evolução do número de incubadoras de empresas no Brasil e sua distribuição regional: uma análise através do modelo log-linear de taxas de crescimento.

Lima, G. M. (2010, July-December). Competitividade por meio de alianças estratégicas. Parcerias estratégicas, 15(31), 103-106.

Matias-Pereira, J. (2011). Política de ciência, tecnologia e inovação: uma avaliação da gestão do sistema de proteção à propriedade intelectual no Brasil. Independent Journal of Management \& Production, 1(2), 44-74.

OECD. (2013, July). Fostering SMEs' Participation in Global Markets: Final Report. Fostering SMEs' Participation in Global Markets: Final Report.

Raupp, F. M., & Beuren, I. M. (2006). O suporte das incubadoras brasileiras para potencializar as características empreendedoras nas empresas incubadas. Revista de Administração da Universidade de São Paulo, 41(4), 419-430.

Here is a nice article explaining differences between Incubators and Accelerators.

Susan Cohen: What Do Accelerators Do? Insights from Incubators and Angels

http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1162/INOV_a_00184

Please go through Wiklund and Shepherd (2003), a compilation of research papers on small business and entrepreneurship titled "small business". Also "Researching Entrepreneurship" by per Davidson (2005) and " A General Theory of Entrepreneurship: The Individual-Opportunity Nexus" by Scott Shane (2003) These are good books which help you to understand business start up. Most of important scientific articles are embodied in these books.

The Startup Genome releases every year its report on the world’s top startup ecosystems. Of the many moving parts of the report, the most noteworthy and potentially controversial is it’s so-called Startup Ecosystem Index, which ranks the world’s top 20 startup ecosystems. http://www.investtoronto.ca/InvestAssets/PDF/Reports/Startup-Ecosystem-Report-2012.pdf

Hello, you might find this CfP interesting. Regards, Vincenzo http://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/products/journals/call_for_papers.htm?id=6121