Özet:

Participation and effective communication has become the normative approach within the field of development communication over the last couple of decades. It is reasoned that for development projects to be sustainable and truly contribute to the development of communities, the communication within these projects must be participatory in nature. Universities are under pressure from both the government and the industry to help with economic development and deliver graduates that can make a positive difference in their field of expertise. University business incubator are business incubators located within a university, and facilitate and develop conditions and support systems that ensure young entrepreneurs with new ventures will function successfully. Business incubators support young entrepreneurs by giving them access to affordable facilities and resources such as secretarial support and office furniture. The Netherlands Initiative for Capacity Development in Higher Education (NICHE) launched such an entrepreneurial support and development programme on the North-West University’s Vaal Triangle Campus, South Africa in February 2009. The bhive university incubator is a unit within Faculty of Economic Sciences & IT with the main focus on bridging the gap between academia and business. This article investigates the extent to which communication between the different stakeholders of the local university incubator is participatory in nature. It futher focuses on determining if the development programme leads to sustainable community development, social change and if the true needs of stakeholders are addressed. A qualitative research approach was used to collect the data, which included interviews and content analysis. Interviews with various stakeholders, explored the premises of the nature of development communication for social change within the bhive University Incubator. All documentation of the bhive, including initails planning documents and agreements between South Africa and the Netherlands were scrutinised during the content analysis. The participant – observer research method was also used, for approximately 2 years, to gain insight into the daily activities within the bhive. The research findings revealed that within the larger paradigm of heteroglossia, a element to successful and effective dialogue within development projects, there is alot of room for improvement. This study concluded by presenting the various areas for improvement and offered theoretically grounded recommendations.

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