Despite the consensus in entrepreneurship literature on the significant contribution of technology business incubation to the realisation of technology entrepreneurship, the range of factors that merge with technology business incubation to shape technology entrepreneurship remains highly contentious. For instance, some studies have placed exclusive emphasis on individual psychological and cognitive factors (e.g., poor business knowledge, limited experience and perceived entrepreneurship capabilities) as explanations for low technology business incubation and poor technology entrepreneurship outcomes. Yet, other studies have concentrated on institutional levels factors such as inadequate incubation support (e.g., the lack of physical capital, social capital and intellectual capital) as critical explanations for suboptimal technology business incubation and technology entrepreneurship outcomes. To further compound the puzzle on key drivers of these business outcomes, other scholars have foregrounded systemic level factors (e.g., national entrepreneurship policy, regional innovation culture, regional SMME funding, the legitimacy of incubators’ mediation of business networks, and system-wide partnerships and collaborations) as contributing to technology business incubation and technology entrepreneurship. The emphasis on the aforesaid different layers of analysis (i.e., individual, institutional and environmental factors) precludes entrepreneurship scholars from developing an integrated picture of these factors to provide a more nuanced and holistic account of factors affecting technology business incubation and technology entrepreneurship. The scientific gap this study explores, therefore, is the varying, hierarchical but partial explanations for low technology business incubation and suboptimal technology entrepreneurship outcomes (i.e., few commercialised applications, low business growth and financial sustainability), which complicate the creation of synergy from individual, institutional and environmental factors affecting technology business incubation to generate technology entrepreneurship, when these factors are considered individually and selectively. The study draws on a humanist perspective and interpretive phenomenology involving two cases of university-based incubation ecosystem actors drawn from a population of 65 participants to provide a comprehensive account of the diverse factors that coalesce around technology business incubation to influence technology entrepreneurship. The phenomenological study which covered 30 in-depth semi-structured interviews, 2 focus group discussions and an extensive review of documents revealed that, scripts, intuition, physical capital, social capital, intellectual capital, national entrepreneurship policy and regional innovation culture were the main individual, institutional and environmental factors that merge with technology business incubation to influence technology entrepreneurship. Moreover, the study established that, at technology business incubation level, gut feelings were critical in incubation decisions such as investment deals, procurement decisions, concluding sales deals, determining product prices, investigating reasons for cancelling of product purchases and managing partnerships. Regarding the realisation of technology entrepreneurship, gut feelings were instrumental in optimising opportunity exploitation in the innovation ecosystem, especially locating new customers, new investment and funding opportunities, which culminated in increased revenue base, return on investment and profit margins of technology startups. Scripts were instrumental in navigating the …