Measure Twice, Cut Once: Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Metrics (original) (raw)

Measuring Entrepreneurial Ecosystems: The Regional Entrepreneurship and Development Index (REDI)

2015

In this paper the Regional Entrepreneurship and Development Index (REDI) has been constructed for capturing the contextual features of entrepreneurship across EU regions. The REDI method builds on the National Systems of Entrepreneurship Theory and provides a way to profile Regional Systems of Entrepreneurship. Important aspects of the REDI method including the Penalty for Bottleneck (PFB) analysis, which helps identifying constraining factors in the Regional Systems of Entrepreneurship. The paper portrays the entrepreneurial disparities amongst EU regions and provides country and regional level, tailor-made public policy suggestions to improve the level of entrepreneurship and optimize resource allocation over the different pillars of entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurial ecosystems, entrepreneurial activity and economic growth: new evidence from European regions

Regional Studies, 2019

Appendix A. Brief discussion of empirical work that identifies systemic and framework conditions of entrepreneurial ecosystems. Institutions play an important role both for the prevalence of different types of entrepreneurial activity and for economic development (Baumol, 1990; Hall & Sobel, 2008; North, 1990), and physical infrastructure enhances human interactions and increases connectivity, reducing costs, helping not only individuals to recognise entrepreneurial opportunities (Audretsch, Heger, & Veith 2015), but more general, economic activity as well. To conclude the framework conditions, the level and variety in demand for goods and services also acts as pull mechanism for entrepreneurship and economic activity, whereas active networks of entrepreneurs provide information flows, enabling opportunity recognition and resource allocation (Aldrich & Zimmer, 1986). When it comes to the systemic conditions, entrepreneurs are seen not only as an output of the system but also as creators (or leaders) of the system by Feld (2012). Leadership within the entrepreneurial ecosystem approach should be seen as having certain role models or otherwise visible entrepreneurs (Stam, 2018). Accessible financing for entrepreneurs was shown to be an important condition for entrepreneurs' ability to grow and to sustain competitiveness, and ultimately for economic development as well (Kerr and Nanda 2009; King & Levine, 1993), whereas the supply of talent or human capital in the form of high skilled and creative individuals is important for entrepreneurial activity and economic development (Acs & Armington 2004; Lee et al. 2004). The creation and the growing stock of knowledge form important sources of spillovers for entrepreneurial opportunities (Audretsch, 1995; Audretsch & Lehmann, 2005). And lastly, the presence of intermediate and support services was shown to be important in assisting new entrepreneurs and increase the efficiency of the economy.

Entrepreneurial ecosystem elements

Small Business Economics, 2019

There is a growing interest in ecosystems as an approach for understanding the context of entrepreneurship at the macro level of an organizational community. It consists of all the interdependent actors and factors that enable and constrain entrepreneurship within a particular territory. Although growing in popularity, the entrepreneurial ecosystem concept remains loosely defined and measured. This paper shows the value of taking a systems view of the context of entrepreneurship: understanding entrepreneurial economies from a systems perspective. We use a systems framework for studying entrepreneurial ecosystems, develop a measurement instrument of its elements, and use this to compose an entrepreneurial ecosystem index to examine the quality of entrepreneurial ecosystems in the Netherlands. We find that the prevalence of high-growth firms in a region is strongly related to the quality of its entrepreneurial ecosystem. Strong interrelationships among the ecosystem elements reveal th...

The Entrepreneurial Ecosystem: The Regional Entrepreneurship and Development Index

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2015

Unlike previous analyses that applied single activity related entrepreneurship measures like self-employment, business ownership ratio, or the GEM's TEA rate, we use a complex entrepreneurship measure, the Global Entrepreneurship and Index (GEI) to examine the level of entrepreneurship in the V4 countries of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. GEI incorporates both individual and institutional factors of entrepreneurship in order to explain the role of entrepreneurship in economic development. The GEI, with its three sub-indexes and fourteen pillars, is a particularly suitable tool for examining the level, the components, and the configuration of the National System of Entrepreneurship. Investigating the V4 countries, we can see that the overall level of entrepreneurship in these countries fits to their level of economic development.

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 as a bridging concept? A conceptual contribution to the debate on entrepreneurship and regional development

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...

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.

Towards Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Indicators: Speed and Acceleration

arXiv: General Economics, 2020

We suggest the use of indicators to analyze entrepreneurial ecosystems, in a way similar to ecological indicators: simple, measurable, and actionable characteristics, used to convey relevant information to stakeholders and policymakers. We define 3 possible such indicators: Fundraising Speed, Acceleration and nth-year speed, all related to the ability of startups to develop more or less rapidly in a given ecosystem. Results based on these 3 indicators for 6 prominent ecosystems (Berlin, Israel, London, New York, Paris, Silicon Valley) exhibit markedly different situations and trajectories. Altogether, they contribute to confirm that such indicators can help shed new and interesting light on entrepreneurial ecosystems, to the benefit of potentially more grounded policy decisions, and all the more so in otherwise blurred and somewhat cacophonic environments.

The relevance of quantity and quality entrepreneurship for regional performance: the moderating role of the entrepreneurial ecosystem

Regional Studies

This study analyses how the entrepreneurial ecosystem and different types of entrepreneurship impact regional performance. By analysing 121 European Union regions between 2012 and 2014, we find that quantity (Kirznerian) entrepreneurship negatively impacts regional performance, while this effect turns positive in the case of quality (Schumpeterian) entrepreneurship. Also, regions with a healthy entrepreneurial ecosystem have a greater capacity to materialize the effects of high business formation rates, regardless of their quality (Kirznerian entrepreneurship), while regions with weak entrepreneurial ecosystem may rely on innovative (Schumpeterian) entrepreneurs to compensate the absence of entrepreneurship support policies and increase their economic outcomes.

The Dutch Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2014

There is a growing interest in ecosystems as an approach for understanding the context of entrepreneurship at the macro level of an organizational community. It consists of all the interdependent actors and factors that enable and constrain entrepreneurship within a particular territory. Although growing in popularity, the entrepreneurial ecosystem concept remains loosely defined and measured. This paper shows the value of taking a systems view of the context of entrepreneurship: understanding entrepreneurial economies from a systems perspective. We use a systems framework for studying entrepreneurial ecosystems, develop a measurement instrument of its elements, and use this to compose an entrepreneurial ecosystem index to examine the quality of entrepreneurial ecosystems in the Netherlands. We find that the prevalence of high-growth firms in a region is strongly related to the quality of its entrepreneurial ecosystem. Strong interrelationships among the ecosystem elements reveal their interdependence and need for a systems perspective.