The Relational Organization of Entrepreneurial Ecosystems (original) (raw)
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Growth and Change, 2020
This paper explores the potential of considering entrepreneurial ecosystems as a bridging concept that enables a trans‐disciplinary exchange. We aim to contribute to the debate by offering a perspective that takes entrepreneurial ecosystems out of their systemic—often geographically fixed—notion of administrative and territorial boundaries by offering a novel conceptual understanding of it. So far, entrepreneurial ecosystems are appreciated for first exhibiting conceptual strengths in terms of integrating entrepreneurs as economic actors (rather than firms as the smallest unit of analysis), and, second, considering entrepreneurship as a process that focuses on the co‐evolution of entrepreneurial activities and their institutional environment. Criticism of this concept arises on its simplification by translating social elements into entrepreneurial ecosystem terminologies and on focusing on quantifiable indicators for measuring and comparing regional ecosystems rather than appreciati...
Toward a process theory of entrepreneurial ecosystems
Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 2017
Entrepreneurial ecosystems have emerged as a popular concept within entrepreneurship policy and practitioner communities. Specifically, they are seen as a regional economic development strategy based around creating supportive environments that foster innovative startups. However, existing research on entrepreneurial ecosystems has been largely typological and atheoretical and has not yet explored how they influence the entrepreneurship process. This paper critically examines the relationships between ecosystems and other existing bodies of work such as clusters and regional innovation systems. Drawing on this background, the paper suggests that a process-based view of ecosystems provides a better framework to understand their role in supporting new venture creation. This framework is used to explain the evolution and transformation of entrepreneurial ecosystems and to create a typology of different ecosystem structures.
Towards a Process Theory of Entrepreneurial Ecosystems
Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 2017
Entrepreneurial ecosystems have emerged as a popular concept within entrepreneurship policy and practitioner communities. Specifically, they are seen as a regional economic development strategy based around creating supportive environments that foster innovative startups. However, existing research on entrepreneurial ecosystems has been largely typological and atheoretical and has not yet explored how they influence the entrepreneurship process. This paper critically examines the relationships between ecosystems and other existing bodies of work such as clusters and regional innovation systems. Drawing on this background, the paper suggests that a process-based view of ecosystems provides a better framework to understand their role in supporting new venture creation. This framework is used to explain the evolution and transformation of entrepreneurial ecosystems and to create a typology of different ecosystem structures. Forthcoming in Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal
A relational perspective on entrepreneurial ecosystems
Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of the entrepreneurship center (EC) in the larger entrepreneurial ecosystem. Entrepreneurial ecosystems thrive because of complex interdependencies and dynamic relationships between and among its participants. While the university has often been highlighted as a key player in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, the role of the EC within the university, despite its strategically influential position in stimulating entrepreneurship, has not received sufficient attention in scholarship. Design/methodology/approach The authors attempt to address this gap in scholarship using an expert Delphi panel approach to explore the vital role that the EC plays in ensuring the vibrancy of the regional entrepreneurial ecosystem. In doing so, the authors tackle the question of sustainability of the EC by outlining a structural framework and key job characteristics of the EC director so that it may thrive beyond the tenure of a transformational leade...
A manifesto for researching entrepreneurial ecosystems
Local Economy, 2020
Entrepreneurial ecosystems are the focus of government economic policies around the world for their potential to generate entrepreneur-led economic development. The paper identifies key research questions and challenges to building effective public policy: (i) the limitations of existing data sources, (ii) the need to balance findings from quantitative and qualitative studies, (iii) the danger that entrepreneurial ecosystems will be just a policy fad, (iv) the narrow focus of policy and research on high tech firms and scale-ups, and (v) the need to balance research approaches between simplified models and a complex systems approach. There is a need for a better understanding of the diversity of policy contexts (level of government, country context) and model of ecosystem governance. A more granulated understanding of ecosystem thinking is required, with greater consideration of the diversity of actors and the institutional context, with more attention given to the heterogeneous nature of places and complex interactions between actors and networks. Looking to the future, the potential of new data sources and methodologies is identified. Future research should give greater consideration to the institutional context to understand how policy can better support entrepreneurial activity and the extent to which specific policies can be replicated elsewhere.
Entrepreneurial Ecosystems and Regional Policy: A Sympathetic Critique
Regional policies for entrepreneurship are currently going through a transition from increasing the quantity of entrepreneurship to increasing the quality of entrepreneurship. The next step will be the transition from entrepreneurship policy towards policy for an entrepreneurial economy. The entrepreneurial ecosystem approach has been heralded as a new framework accommodating these transitions. This approach starts with the entrepreneurial actor, but emphasizes the context of productive entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is not only the output of the system, entrepreneurs are important players themselves in creating the ecosystem and keeping it healthy. This research briefing reviews the entrepreneurial ecosystem literature and its shortcomings, and provides a novel synthesis. The entrepreneurial ecosystem approach speaks directly to practitioners, but its causal depth and evidence base is rather limited. This article provides a novel synthesis including a causal scheme of how the framework and systemic conditions of the ecosystem lead to particular entrepreneurial activities as output of the ecosystem and new value creation as outcome of the ecosystem. In addition it provides a framework for analysing the interactions between the elements within the ecosystem. This offers a much more rigorous and relevant starting point for subsequent studies into entrepreneurial ecosystems and the regional policy implications of these.
To bridge or buffer? A resource dependence theory of nascent entrepreneurial ecosystems
Journal of Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies
Purpose Vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystems, systems of inter-related forces that promote and sustain regional entrepreneurship, are increasingly viewed as sources of innovation, economic development and community revitalization. Regions with emerging, underdeveloped or depressed economies are attempting to develop their nascent entrepreneurial ecosystems in the hopes of experiencing the positive benefits of entrepreneurial activity. For nascent entrepreneurial ecosystems to grow requires resources. However, how nascent entrepreneurial ecosystems manage their resource dependencies and the tensions that exist between creating and attracting resources are not clear. The purpose of this paper is to propose a theory of nascent entrepreneurial ecosystem resource dependence. Design/methodology/approach This conceptual paper analyzes entrepreneurial ecosystems as meta-organizations and builds on resource dependence theory to explain how nascent ecosystems respond to environmental dependenci...
International Journal of Innovation and Regional Development, 2018
This article proposes a theoretical-methodological approach for the modelling and creation of entrepreneurial ecosystems, a notion that dominates in current entrepreneurial literature. Drawing upon the extant literature on ecosystems and their complexity in different contexts we focus on Manizales Más, an entrepreneurial ecosystem in Colombia, to discuss it as an artefact of fourth order design. At present, the relevant literature and theoretical insights are summarised while appropriate methodology for future research is discussed. The study aims at connecting the general notion of 'ecosystem' with entrepreneurial ecosystems in a precise way for further empirical research.
Strategic Organization, 2021
The “entrepreneurial ecosystem” (EE) has become the dominant metaphor in theories explaining how location-specific forces influence entrepreneurship. Despite the progress made by scholars studying EEs, in this essay we contend that the ecosystem metaphor has created an implicit tendency in entrepreneurship theory to emphasize macro-, ecosystem-level dynamics rather than the causal and mediating mechanisms linking entrepreneurs and their local ecosystems. To accompany the macro-dynamics focus in EE theory, we call for a micro-foundations approach that emphasizes the bi-directional connections between entrepreneurs’ strategizing and organizing activities and their ecosystems. We offer an agenda of theory development opportunities at the intersection of strategic organization and EEs.
Nova Scotia's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem
Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, 2021
The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Ecosystem Index Methodology was applied to Nova Scotia, Canada, to evaluate the ecosystem in 2019 using the Stam (2015) model based on 10 pillars that make up the quality of any ecosystem. The results indicated that Nova Scotia constitutes a developing ecosystem that enjoys several strengths and that Nova Scotia is positioned competitively within the ranking of the Canadian ecosystems considered in 2019 (i.e., Alberta and Montreal). The report presents findings on the perceptions of the strengths and weaknesses of the 10 pillars of Nova Scotia's entrepreneurial ecosystem.