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Actors of university entrepreneurial ecosystems
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The 'recycling' of people, capital and ideas is a key process that can support activity in an entrepreneurial ecosystem. Previous research has shown that knowledge recycled from prior employment is important for the entrepreneurial ecosystem and we expand upon this to understand which types of knowledge, as well as individual motivations for transferring this knowledge. We have created a novel dataset to track employee career trajectories within an ecosystem, showing the extent to which employees derive experience from within the ecosystem as well as the extent to which they recycle their entrepreneurial experience by returning to employment. A sample from this dataset participated in semi-structured interviews. The interviews provide early empirical evidence on entrepreneurial recycling through career mobility and development within entrepreneurial ecosystems. In contrast to prior findings of a low prevalence of direct entrepreneurial activity through entrepreneur-ial recycling, we show a high prevalence of entrepreneurs who have previously worked in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, and that these entrepreneurs often recycle back to employment within the ecosystem. In this process the individuals develop and transfer tangible skills developed in entrepreneurship. This is motivated by a need for regrouping and further developing the tacit knowledge to put them back in a position to seek self-realisation through entrepreneurship. In the process this exposes them to new activities that enable the development of tangible skills and the motivation to regroup once again, and complete the loop of entrepreneurial recycling.
The paper draws on network theory to employ concepts of homophily and heterophily to investigate whether the presence of familiar, unfamiliar or a mix of actors in an entrepreneurial ecosystem is related to start-up rates. The empirical focus of this study is on 81 UK university entrepreneurial ecosystems and their outputs in terms of academic spinoff companies. The paper finds that university entrepreneurial ecosystems with access to actors of predominantly heterophilious character are associated with higher spinoff start-up rates. It is concluded that in stimulating the development of successful entrepreneurial ecosystems there is a clear need to focus on their openness to heterophilious actors, inclusive of other ecosystems. This is especially important in the context of network lock-in that may arise from dependence on homophilious ties.
Plain English Summary
Entrepreneurial ecosystems characterised by openness to diverse actors generate more firms, as shown in a study focusing on 81 UK university entrepreneurial ecosystems. The paper studies network character of actors in entrepreneurial ecosystems and whether this character is associated with start-up rates. Specifically, it focuses on the familiarity of actors, inspecting whether it is related to greater venture formations. In so doing, the study examines 81 UK university entrepreneurial ecosystems. It finds that university entrepreneurial ecosystems that generate more ventures are associated with having a presence of actors of unfamiliar character, drawing attention to the openness of ecosystems’ networks. The key implication of the study is in recognising the link between the ecosystem’s openness to diverse actors and its entrepreneurial performance.
This paper aims to examine the interplay between the attributes of the FinTech ecosystem (input) and productive entrepreneurship (output) in Russian regions. A survey was used to gather data from FinTech representatives in ten selected regions located in Russia. The acquired responses allowed measuring the FinTech ecosystem attributes by calculating the FinTech ecosystem index. Correlation analysis was used to analyse the association between the FinTech ecosystem index and productive entrepreneurship, as measured by the number of FinTechs. Data envelopment analysis was used to determine regions with more productive entrepreneurship given the ecosystem attributes. The FinTech ecosystem index defines a similar environment in the analysed regions for financial sector entrepreneurship. The regions have high values of physical infrastructure, demand, and talent, while new knowledge and networks appear as weaknesses. Still, Moscow has the highest and Chelyabinsk the lowest FinTech ecosystem index. There appears a positive link between FinTech ecosystem attributes and productive entrepreneurship. The Moscow and Chelyabinsk regions are also revealed as the regions that effectively create an environment for productive entrepreneurship from the position of the Fintech ecosystem index. This study contributed to the existing literature by measuring FinTech ecosystem attributes and productive entrepreneurship, investigating the relationship between them and determining the territories with productive entrepreneurship. It also contributed to Russian FinTech literature by being the first to measure the environment for financial sector entrepreneurship.
This paper examines the link between the composition of university entrepreneurial ecosystems and performance of higher education institutions (HEIs) in academic entrepreneurship, specifically founding academic spinoff companies. The paper studies a sample of 160 UK HEIs and their university entrepreneurial ecosystems related to formation of 784 academic spinoffs. It employs social network analysis (SNA) to inspect the composition and connections between university entrepreneurial ecosystems. It finds that HEIs based in better developed university entrepreneurial ecosystems are associated with formation of greater numbers of academic spinoff companies. The best performing ecosystems are based in the Greater South East region. It is concluded that policymakers need to recognize the importance of the composition of the university entrepreneurial ecosystems and the role it plays in academic entrepreneurship.
There is limited experience with innovation policies in rural areas, often based on a one-size-fits-all approach. However, rural businesses have diverse needs and there is difficulty in applying smart specialisation approaches for the use of European Union Cohesion funding in rural areas. A key resource in rural areas is the local university, and universities face increased demands to support local firms. This paper examines one particular case of a university in a rural region and its use of the European Regional Development Fund to support innovation activities. The challenges of working with rural businesses are explored, as is the focus on one-to-one support rather than the more collective smart specialisation approach. Universities need to take a pragmatic approach to ensure that the needs of firms can be balanced with the capacities of rural universities which are often smaller and more specialised than urban universities.
Based on the entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) perspective, this paper examines the role of finance and interrelated value-adding activities in ecosystems. The study employs a multiple-case design and interviews with 11 rural and urban innovative start-ups and stakeholders in the Norwegian market for entrepreneurial financing. The analysis disentangles the term recycling of entrepreneurial resources in ecosystems, explained here as a self-enhancing cycle of finance under certain conditions that allows enhancement of the ecosystem and members. The aim is to explain these mechanisms in business-level ecosystems, why they are important, and how they are new to entrepreneurship theories. The study argues that the robustness of ecosystems is characterised by the extent of such activities and how they affect entrepreneurial and regional growth. Bottom-up ecosystems can be spatially scattered and enable start-ups in disadvantageous localities to harvest critical resources from more advantageous places. This study provides a theoretical extension of EEs.
It is not clear if entrepreneurial ecosystems are cohesive wholes within a region that support high-growth entrepreneurship across a variety of sectors or if ecosystems are made up of several, nested sectoral-specific sub-ecosystems. This debate speaks to larger disagreements about what entrepreneurial ecosystems are and how they work. This paper addresses this research gap by using a novel methodology based on career history data of founders and top management teams of high-growth FinTech ventures. This method is used to classify the backgrounds of 1,570 individuals in 380 British FinTech firms based on their prior job histories and employers into categories such as technology or finance. The paper finds substantial evidence of nestedness in the ecosystems, but rather than FinTech ecosystems being specialized finance or technology clusters, more generic forms of managerial know-how remain crucial to firm innovation and growth. This suggests that even very advanced ecosystems remain nested, with few cross-over points between different communities.
This paper reviews the key theories of the firm and considers their relevance to studying and understanding academic spinoffs as a special case of firms. The theory of the firm is an important aspect in entrepreneurship literature, as without clear understanding of the parameters influencing firm's behaviour, it remains difficult to predict its decisions to secure sustainable growth and ensure development of the economy overall. The paper considers the contribution of transaction cost theory, managerial theory, resource-based view, knowledge-based view, and dynamic capabilities, to the understanding of the academic spinoff. In essence, these theoretical explanations lend multiple perspectives that offer a greater insight into the academic spinoff firm by illuminating the issues of its boundaries, entrepreneurs, resources, knowledge, and networks. It is concluded that understanding academic spinoffs requires acknowledging this theoretical plurality. In response to this challenge, the paper proposes the Academic Spinoff Theory of the Firm.
This review article sheds a light on the complex and hitherto under-researched relationship between geography and entrepreneurship. This relationship is considered to be interdependent. Both directions are discussed. The paper also describes the perspectives of both academic disciplines involved in regional entrepreneurship research, namely (geographically sensitive) economics and management studies on the one hand, and economic geography on the other. Based on a comprehensive overview of the theoretical and empirical literature on regional entrepreneurship, several research gaps are identified that could be helpful for designing future research. Some have strong relevance for government policy, which has recently paid much more attention to entrepreneurship than in the past (e.g. related to the entrepreneurial ecosystem approach), but which rather rarely has been considered in academic evaluations so far. This paper ends with a suggestion for an agenda for future regional entrepreneurship research. Digital transformation with its potential for a disruptive transformation of economies and societies will provide an excellent and, of course, a currently not well-understood research field for regional entrepreneurship research.
First introduced and published in 2000, this UK Competitiveness Index (UKCI) report represents the 2021 edition of the report. The UKCI provides a benchmarking of the competitiveness of the UK’s localities, and it has been designed to be an integrated measure of competitiveness focusing on both the development and sustainability of businesses and the economic welfare of individuals. This report publishes competitiveness indices that incorporate the most up-to-date data available in 2021. These data will largely relate to the period since the UK’s departure from the European Union (EU) and the beginning of the Covid-19 Pandemic and associated economic downturn in 2020.
As a comparator prior to these major unforeseen (Covid-19 Pandemic) and foreseen (UK’s departure from EU) economic events, an updated UKCI is also generated for 2018. This UKCI will provide a measure of competitiveness prior to these shocks and before the period of greatest uncertainty associated with the UK’s departure from the EU. This provides a means of comparison and an examination of the UK’s changing competitiveness landscape.
The body of literature on entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) is rapidly expanding, but few studies have simultaneously examined their complexity, dynamics, and context. To better understand how they evolve, we introduce the notion of EE path dependence based on an original combination of an evolutionary approach and complex adaptive system theory. We thus present a whirlwind model that takes the form of subecosystems and that integrates a structural approach with attributes and a dynamic approach with sequences. Context is addressed through narratives and entrepreneurial stories. We conducted a case study on the EE of Montpellier, France. To characterize the subecosystems, we quantified the attributes using NVivo software, showing their links and evolution over time. The results shed light on the subecosystems that contributed the most to the entrepreneurial dynamics. This study contributes to extending path dependence theory to EEs. The results may help policymakers rethink their development strategies by setting priorities in accordance with the drivers of their EEs.
The concept of entrepreneurial ecosystems has gained tremendous attention in academia across different scientific disciplines. This start-of-the-art contribution addresses the most recent lineages of the entrepreneurial ecosystem debate from a spatial perspective: measurement of entrepreneurial ecosystems, entrepreneurial evolution, novel actors, institutions and events, governance as well as gender in entrepreneurial ecosystems. The theoretical advancements will be critically reviewed by examining the implicit and explicit spatial references. The paper also highlights the potential of using spatial analysis for entrepreneurial ecosystems, drawing on four different understandings of space.
In his seminal 1921 book, Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit , Frank Knight distinguished uncertainty and risk. This paper applies Knight's concept of uncertainty to knowledge generated in incumbent organizations to explain the inherent difficulty in assessing potential innovations along with the key role played by knowledge spillover entrepreneurship as a conduit for transforming new knowledge created by an incumbent organization but ultimately commercialized through the creation of a new firm and innovation. Knowledge is inherently uncertain and constitutes what is characterized as the knowledge filter impeding innovative activity in the context of incumbent firms and organizations. The organizational and institutional context and market uncertainty can either facilitate or impede the spillover of knowledge from the firm where it was created to the entrepreneurial startup where it is transformed into innovation. The empirical evidence based on a large, unbalanced panel of 9,126 UK firms constructed from six consecutive waves of a community innovation survey and annual business registry survey during 2002–2014. Implications for managers, scholars, and policymakers are provided.
Scholars and practitioners continue to recognize the crucial role of entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) in creating a conducive environment for productive entrepreneurship. Although EEs are fundamentally interaction systems of hierarchically independent yet mutually dependent actors, few studies have investigated how interactions among ecosystem actors drive the entrepreneurial process. Seeking to address this gap, this paper explores how ecosystem actor interactions influence new ventures in the financial technology (fintech) EE of Singapore. Guided by an EE framework and the use of an exploratory-abductive approach, empirical data from semi-structured interviews is collected and analyzed. The findings reveal four categories representing both the relational perspective, which features interaction and intermediation dynamics, and the cultural perspective, which encompasses ecosystem development and regulatory dynamics. These categories help explain how and why opportunity identification and resource exploitation are accelerated or inhibited for entrepreneurs in fintech EEs. The present study provides valuable contributions to scholars and practitioners interested in EEs and contributes to the academic understanding of the emerging fintech phenomenon.
Drawing on the concept of human capital externalities, this paper investigates universities’ contribution to regional economies by analysing two types of graduate retention: labour retention (graduates employed in the region where they studied) and entrepreneurship retention (graduates starting businesses in the region where they studied). Using a panel of English universities (2010/11–2015/16), the paper examines the extent to which the specialization and diversification of universities’ subject mix influences graduate retention rates across urban and non-urban areas. Findings show that agglomeration dynamics affect labour and entrepreneurship retention differently, and that universities’ knowledge offer (subject specialization) matters across diverse geographical contexts.
The main goal of this article is to appraise the existence of different patterns of the Entrepreneurial Ecosystems, to identify its relationship with Entrepreneurial Initiative, and recommend entrepreneurship policies that may influence the growth of entrepreneurial action. Without evidence on entrepreneurial ecosystems landscape and what determinants stimulate entrepreneurship in a given environment, policies could become flawed and miss the target. To address research purposes, the analysis was performed using data extracted from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) Database carried out between 2010 and 2016. To ensure a longitudinal perspective, it was used a balanced panel approach followed by Logistic Regression estimations. The article offers a novel and systematic approach, the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Taxonomy, to overcome a disaggregated perspective on entrepreneurial ecosystems, between individual and context levels. Empirical findings capture four different country profiles, based on two measures: Entrepreneurial ecosystems and entrepreneurial initiative. The results allow to compare the four groups and appraise significant disparities around entrepreneurship determinants, namely, the education factor. While education is commonly recognized as a positive influence on entrepreneurship, the results suggest a contradictory effect. The existence of differentiated profiles and its determinants points outs the importance of developing specific entrepreneurship policy packages attending group specificities.
Entrepreneurial ecosystems have become a prominent concept, yet in its current state, the concept itself represents a paradox. While it draws on a rich intellectual history and provides an opportunity to synthesize different strands of research, it is also under-theorized and the mechanisms that govern ecosystem evolution are not well understood. This paper takes stock of recent advancements in ecosystem scholarship and synthesizes the empirical reality of the causal mechanisms. We use these dynamics to position ecosystems in a broader context, within and beyond the domain of entrepreneurship research, and propose a transdisciplinary research program for ecosystem research and practice.
The literature on academic entrepreneurship within business schools is limited and fragmented. The purpose of this systematic literature review is to address this deficit and to identify what business schools do to support academic entrepreneurship and to outline a future research agenda. Based on our systematic literature review we identified three main themes that business schools do to support academic entrepreneurship namely: entrepreneurial education; entrepreneurial networks; and entrepreneurial ecosystems. Furthermore, we identified two further embryonic themes, individual level factors and obstacles to entrepreneurship. Based on our review and analysis we present some future avenues for research.
Technological change that arises outside an industry and is used within it affects entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial ecosystems, but remains understudied. In this project we assess the role of financial technology (fintech) innovation in the process of firm entry into the investment advisory sector, bearing in mind that the core of this innovation arises from technological development that is external to the industry. Our analysis of a sector of the U.S.-based financial services industry indicates that fintech innovation has contributed to a substantial increase in the rate of entrepreneurial entry into the industry. More importantly, we show that this innovation has an asymmetric effect on the firms in the industry, strengthening startups and smaller firms while increasing competitive pressure on larger incumbents. Our findings contribute to the literature by exemplifying that external technology shocks can change market structure by strengthening entrepreneurial ecosystems.
Regional business development is driven by family firms, which are generally deeply embedded in their region, particularly in rural areas. This study explores how family entrepreneurs’ embeddedness drives an entrepreneurial ecosystem as a regional context for innovation. For this purpose, the study brings together entrepreneurship research on embeddedness and on ecosystems, and develops the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Embeddedness (EEE) framework to better understand the connection of entrepreneurs to their local environment along three dimensions. Analyzing qualitative interviews from the hospitality context with a pattern matching approach, we highlight the role of family entrepreneurs’ 1) horizontal embeddedness in the economic and socio-political environment, their 2) vertical embeddedness in industry regimes, in particular the family, and their 3) spatial embeddedness in the region for value creation. Thereby we contribute to a differentiated understanding of how embeddedness as a social fabric relates to entrepreneurial ecosystems. The propositions of this study recommend raising awareness for managing entrepreneurs’ embeddedness along these three dimensions since unilateral engagement and a lack of coordinated embeddedness can restrict value creation.
We conceptualize entrepreneurial ecosystems as fundamentally reliant on networks and explore how and under what conditions inter-organizational networks lead an entrepreneurial ecosystem to form and evolve. It is widely accepted that entrepreneurial ecosystems possess a variety of symbiotic relationships. Research has focused considerable efforts in refining the structure and content of resources found within these networked relationships. However, merely focusing on actor-level characterizations dilutes the notion that social relationships change and are complex. There has been little conceptual treatment of the behavioral and governance factors that underpin how quality interactions composing an entrepreneurial ecosystem develop and change over time. In response, we provide a longitudinal ethnographic study examining how ecosystems are managed and evolve in their relational configurations and governance at critical junctures. Using mixed methods and data collected over three years, we reveal a cyclical process of relational development central to the initiation, development, and maintenance phases of a valuable entrepreneurial ecosystem. We contribute to a conceptualization of effective ecosystems as reliant on networks, we reveal the behavior and governance characteristics at play in the entrepreneurial ecosystem during each phase of its evolution.
Competition and day‐to‐day firefighting prevents small businesses from undertaking the most effective types of strategic planning and networking for growth and innovation. Poor or inappropriate execution of these activities highlights the need for targeted managerial training. Potential explanations for the weak growth of many SMEs focus on the limited use of strategic planning and networking activities. Data from a management survey of SMEs in South East Wales shows that where these activities are undertaken the type of networking and information sought from it is often not that most associated with innovation and growth. Therefore, it may not be their absence per se, but the poor or inappropriate execution of these activities that is the key problem. This deficiency highlights the need for targeted managerial training in these areas.
Built on a transaction cost economics (TCE) perspective, this study investigates whether startups’ early growth prompts them to relocate to a new place, and, if so, how long-distance versus short-distance choices affect their post-relocation performance in the market. The empirical findings using 4928 US startups from the Kauffman Firm Survey dataset are three-fold. First, startups are more likely to move as they grow in the developmental process of entrepreneurship. Second, startups realize higher levels of performance in terms of firm survival and sales growth only through transaction cost-minimizing intra-state relocation, not through inter-state relocation. Third, the superior performance of intra-state relocation of startups seems to be mitigated when they conduct location-independent businesses using Internet-based on-line transactions. The study concludes with managerial and public policy implications from these empirical findings.
In recent years, there has been increasing pressure on Universities to shift from focusing primarily on teaching and performing research, and to add an equivocal Third Mission (TM), labelled “a contribution to society”. Unprecedented challenges have been redesigning the missions of Universities, which are often perceived as being at a crossroads. The TM is a multidisciplinary, complex, evolving phenomenon linked to the social and economic mission of Universities in a broad sense. Existing studies mainly focus on Universities in accomplishing their traditional missions, or they offer a narrow perspective of the TM. To the best of our knowledge, no systematic literature review has been performed on the TM to comprehensively explore its heterogeneous functions, constraints, clashes and incorporation within education and research. This paper presents a systematic review of the state of knowledge and develops a novel framework for the enactment of the TM. The paper reveals the potential and the constraints of the recurring themes of the TM, focusing especially on the engagement of non-academic stakeholders. It also suggests, to scholars and policymakers, a selection of measures through which some of the challenges might be faced. The paper offers both a descriptive and a thematic analysis, through examination of 134 peer-reviewed articles which were published between 2004 and May 2019.
The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of the entrepreneurial university in supporting the development of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in a post conflict, transitional economy. We developed a cross case analysis to identify common themes and patterns in the data. Our findings demonstrate that in a post conflict, transitional economy entrepreneurial universities entrepreneurial ecosystem development is constrained by a number of institutional factors including, structures , systems , leadership , strategies , and culture . We further identify that, when an entrepreneurial ecosystem system has been destroyed during conflict, these constraints present significant challenges to the evolution of the entrepreneurial ecosystem post conflict. Second, in a departure from other studies, our findings also outline the role of the entrepreneurial university in the unique evolution of the post conflict entrepreneurial ecosystem in Rwanda. We identify that the entrepreneurial ecosystem evolves through a number of stages including, embryonic , destruction , formation , and capacity building stages .
The entrepreneurial ecosystems literature has increasingly explored network relationships between different stakeholders, as well as the role of context. This article addresses the challenge of including a sport context in the entrepreneurial ecosystem literature thereby contributing to the sport entrepreneurship literature by bringing insights from entrepreneurship ecosystem research. In-depth interviews of football stakeholders in the sport entrepreneurship ecosystem are conducted in terms of understanding the emergence of digital sport start-ups. The issues raised help explore the changing nature of digital entrepreneurial ecosystems to take into account new sport technological advances. Mixed embeddedness theory is used as the conceptual foundation to understand sport digital entrepreneurial ecosystems. Key management practices are identified in terms of sport start-ups participating in entrepreneurial ecosystems. The article concludes by making suggestions for future research. K E Y W O R D S digital entrepreneurship, ecosystem, entrepreneurial ecosystem, football, internationalization, networks, sport, stakeholder, technology
Academic research is generally seen as one of the most important goals of a university, but universities are being called upon simultaneously to assist in building a local entrepreneurial ecosystem and contributing to economic growth. Universities can be the source of startups based on academic research results and thereby influence a given industrial context. This paper investigates the impact of academic entrepreneurship on the economic performance of university spin-offs (USOs) and, in particular, how the composition of the founding team, the diversity of academic ownership, CEO duality, and the presence of women on the board of directors affect USO success. We study these relationships with a cross-sectional sample of 136 firms in southern Italy. Our findings highlight that governance and ownership can influence various indicators that are often used for measuring enterprise success in different ways and that, based on the specific success metrics, managers or policymakers should consider different aspects to better understand a USO’s potential for success.
This is among the few studies to test the Knowledge Spillover Theory of Entrepreneurship (KSTE) at the city level in a developing country i.e. Pakistan. KSTE is in its empirical infancy; while the theory has been lauded for its advancement of microeconomic foundations in endogenous growth theory, there is scant literature on just how well KSTE holds when tested empirically outside the developed world. This study uses a novel dataset to measure knowledge stock and spillovers in ten major cities across Pakistan to answer the question: What is the role of knowledge spillover in the creation of business firms in cities of a developing country? The study provides valuable insights into the factors that lead to higher levels of firm creation through panel data analysis of ten cities of Pakistan during 2002–2014, and also contributes to captivating the global appeal for KSTE by testing the theory empirically in a developing country.
This research employs ecosystem and strategic fit theories to understand incubators’ relationships with other ecosystem actors by investigating the elaboration of specialization, diversification and co-opetition strategies. In the entrepreneurial support ecosystem, incubators act as intermediaries bridging the gap between tenants and their external environment. These strategically-led organizations offer a unique perspective for exploring the strategic fit differentiation engine through a holistic approach. A qualitative study reviews 48 semi-structured interviews derived from five case studies of the main incubator types. The results show that incubators differentiate themselves by employing various combinations of individual and collective strategies consisting of individual, organizational and environmental factors to achieve ecosystem benefits. These findings provide a cross-level understanding of the entrepreneurial support ecosystem for all ecosystem actors and enable the implementation of appropriate generic strategies.
Regions and cities face unceasing pressures to adapt in response to processes of globalisation, changes in industrial production, and new patterns of migration and trade. At the same time, the dominant development policies are proving less than capable of providing answers to these challenges. Strategies based on a mix of physical and human capital and technology have not succeeded in dealing with growing territorial inequality and its treacherous economic, social and political consequences. There is thus an urgent need to understand why territorial divergence occurs and why there is what seems to be a growing decline in the returns of public intervention targeting economic development. In search for answers, scholars have turned to the examination of institutions. But despite progress in our grasp of how institutions affect development, crucial knowledge gaps remain. This paper reviews recent progress in our understanding of the role of institutions for development, unveils the most important gaps, and proposes a series of avenues to improve how a better understanding of how institutions shape regional and urban development can lead to more efficient development policies.
The authors discuss how increased globalization, economic complexity and dynamism exacerbate contradictions between theoretical and empirical-driven arguments. In this discussion, the authors offer an analysis of the entrepreneurship paradox—that is, entrepreneurship is good for the economy but entrepreneurial activity is consistently higher in less developed and developing countries over time—through the lenses of two relevant tensions that underlie this paradox: the development tension (i.e., the inconsistent relationship between entrepreneurship and economic performance) and the policy tension (i.e., the unclear role of entrepreneurship policy on entrepreneurship outcomes). The authors explore the policy implications of this theoretical paradox by scrutinizing the effect of both the rate of entrepreneurial activity (quantity-based entrepreneurship) and the entrepreneurial ecosystem (quality-based entrepreneurship) on economic performance (GDP per capita). The empirical exercise, based on a sample of 81 countries from Africa, America, Asia and Europe, focuses on how the development tension and the policy tension shape the entrepreneurship paradox. In exploring these two theoretical tensions, the authors define and distinguish quantitative entrepreneurship from the systemic, quality-based entrepreneurial ecosystem and set forth alternative policies to reconcile the tensions between entrepreneurship and development. The analysis of the entrepreneurship paradox contributes to the debate on the economic role of entrepreneurship and concludes highlighting that, regardless of their development level, economies do not need more entrepreneurs but rather a healthy entrepreneurship ecosystem that supports the optimal channeling of entrepreneurship outcomes to the economy.KeywordsEntrepreneurship paradoxEntrepreneurial ecosystemPolicy prioritiesGEIAfricaDeveloping economies
This paper contributes to the understanding of university spinoff (USO) development by analysing structural properties of their shareholder networks over time and across different regions. Theoretically, we propose a new stage-based typology of USO development across regions. Empirically, the study utilises a sample of 1033 academic spinoffs founded by 87 universities across 12 unitary regions in the UK considering the diversity of spatial contexts in the USO development. We undertake a social network analysis of relations USOs form with their parent universities and shareholders by adopting ‘betweenness centrality’ and ‘structural holes’ as two key measures. By employing this novel network-based view of firm development across regions, this study builds on the development model of USOs by identifying three key phases of USO development: (1) organisation phase, (2) exploitation phase, and (3) maturity and reorganisation phase. Second, we observe differences in USOs in terms of shareholder network development across diverse regional contexts. We propose a novel typology of entrepreneurial regions to better understand the diverse spatiality of USOs: peripheral lock-in, entrepreneurial periphery, rigid core, and entrepreneurial core. We call for further research to capture the long-term development and variable growth paths of USOs.
This study integrates research on knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship and sustainable entrepreneurship in the light of new ventures’ increasing need to consider the social and environmental impact of their knowledge-intensive activities. We reviewed 49 articles with the twofold aim of exploring how knowledge-intensive and sustainable new ventures interact with the actors embedded in the entrepreneurial ecosystem to (1) pursue elements of survival and growth, and to (2) contribute to economic growth and sustainable development. In the conclusion of our article, we introduce a research agenda to identify relevant avenues for future studies.
Purpose
Entrepreneurial ecosystems provide the context for start-ups to access resources. The authors investigate the reliance of start-ups on their entrepreneurial ecosystem and the driving factors behind the proportion of local actors (belonging to their entrepreneurial ecosystem) within their overall set of relationships (their business ecosystem). Recognizing the limited relational capacity of firms, the authors focus on three differentiating firm characteristics: size, age and innovation of firms.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors developed a sample of 163 start-ups located in the entrepreneurial ecosystem of Toulouse, France. The authors investigated the characteristics of their relationship sets using regression analysis.
Findings
The results confirm that age is inversely related to the proportion of a start-up's relationships located in its entrepreneurial ecosystem. More surprisingly, for older start-ups, the authors also highlight the presence of a moderating effect of the start-up's size on the relationship between its degree of innovation and the proportion of its relationships in its entrepreneurial ecosystem: Larger and more innovative start-ups appear to rely more on their local entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Originality/value
This research increases the understanding of the characteristics driving the interactions of start-ups with their entrepreneurial ecosystems by adopting a relational capacity approach. The authors introduce digital methods as an innovative approach for uncovering firms' ecosystems. Finally, from a practical point of view, the research should provide public authorities seeking to promote the link between local resources and the development of innovative start-ups in their regions with interesting insights.
This paper, through a longitudinal qualitative study of comparable but different entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) in Tokyo and Bangalore, contributes to the understanding of how local EEs can be compared and measured in a way that pays attention to context and time. In contrast to many existing approaches to measuring EEs, this study follows a bottom-up approach anchored in organisation theory to uncover potentially systematic EE differences (pointing to EE types) and – based on those – propose contextualised EE measurement dimensions in an inductive way. Specifically, the paper conceptualises EEs as organisational fields, and introduces and traces a unit of analysis comprised of institutional work and practice performed by EE stakeholders (entrepreneurs, investors, various supporters) on elements related to institutional infrastructure of their EEs (e.g. financial and labour resources, support infrastructure, markets). This analysis illuminates which EE elements are particularly important in a given location and time as evidenced by the stakeholders’ actions.
The findings reveal similarity in elements related to EEs’ institutional infrastructure that have been the objects of action in both locations. At the same time, there are patterns of similarities and differences in substance and sequence of the actions. For instance, institutional work and practice regarding support infrastructure consisted of similar specific actions and occurred in similar sequence over time in both Tokyo and Bangalore, in contrast to the actions related to markets. Further, uncovering the existence of disputes regarding some instances of actions performed with regards to EEs’ institutional infrastructure, allows identifying a set of interacting dimensions (underlying EEs’ institutional infrastructure) that drive similarities and differences in EEs’ evolution trajectories in Tokyo and Bangalore by moderating stakeholders’ actions: transnational connectedness, domestic old economy factors, perceived local EE needs, and EE benchmarks. This set of dimensions and their interactions is conceptualised as beginnings of a novel framework for comparing sub-national EEs – Varieties of Entrepreneurial Ecosystems – which is anchored in organisation theory but sensitised by insights from established comparative frameworks like Varieties of Capitalism. The cases examined in this paper allow to specify two EE types: more domestically-oriented EE (like Tokyo) and more transnationally-oriented EE (like Bangalore), both sharing the characteristic of developing and strengthening over time. Based on the Varieties of Entrepreneurial Ecosystems, the paper proposes contextualised EE measurement dimensions as an alternative and complementary way to the existing approaches to measuring EEs.
Overall, this paper contributes to EE studies (including the implications for policy and practice regarding how to assess and measure EEs), as well as to organisation theory, to the underdeveloped issue of how to compare across organisational fields using the institutional infrastructure concept.
While innovation is viewed as crucial means of promoting competitiveness of rural SMEs, rural areas can be blighted by an ‘underdeveloped innovation environment’. Perhaps due to an urban bias in innovation research, open innovation through university collaboration among rural SMEs has not been extensively examined. Using a dataset of 880 rural SMEs from the UK, the paper suggests that rural SMEs are less likely to collaborate with a university than urban SMEs. Furthermore, higher numbers of employees and export revenues have a positive influence on the propensity to collaborate with a university. In addition, collaborating with organisations such as private laboratories and public sector research institutes increases the propensity to engage in university collaboration.
This paper examines a novel and innovative methodological approach and dataset for measuring the complex relational dynamics underpinning entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs). Existing measurement techniques have largely failed to yield sufficiently nuanced data or insights to inform robust policy recommendations within this research field. To rectify this situation, this paper sets out a novel approach to assessing the relational connectivity within EEs by capturing entrepreneurial "conversations". Drawing on real-time data extracted from an event-based social media platform, in combination with social network analysis and qualitative interview data, we provide an in-depth assessment of the relational connections within the city of Edinburgh at three analytical levels. Overall, the paper demonstrates that the analysis of conversations and conversational spaces is an important mechanism for exploring and mapping the relational connectivity within EEs. As well as producing novel empirical insights, this approach provides policy makers with vital strategic policy intelligence to help better inform public policy frameworks and associated interventions.
This paper seeks to explain the variable outcomes from university entrepreneurial ecosystems by observing their structural and spatial configurations in relation to spinoff company development. Four UK university entrepreneurial ecosystems are examined with data collected through interviews with the core actors of university entrepreneurial ecosystems: technology transfer officers, academic founders, external entrepreneurs, investors, and business incubators. It is found that university entrepreneurial ecosystem outcomes are dependent on the processes of connectedness and filtration, underpinned by geography. The effectiveness of these processes is dependent on university entrepreneurial ecosystem calibration, leading to different outcomes in terms of spinoff company formation and survival across the spectrum of universities. Successful university entrepreneurial ecosystems are characterised by strong connectedness and effective filtration, having a strong local and interregional character.
We estimate the causal effect of workplace–home commuting distance on inventor productivity. We construct a novel panel of U.S. inventors with precisely measured workplace–home distances and inventor-level productivity. Our identification strategy exploits firm relocations as exogenous variations in the commuting distance of the firm’s inventors. We find a significant negative effect from commuting distance on inventor productivity: every 10 km increase in distance is associated with a 5% decrease in patent counts per inventor–firm pair per year and an even greater 7% decrease in patent quality. The highest-performing inventors suffer the greatest from increased commuting distance. We discuss the implications of our findings in the light of recent trends around telecommuting and remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The notion of entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) has received growing interest from scientists, practitioners and policy-makers over the past decade. Whereas previous research has predominantly focused on identifying the main components and attributes of different ecosystems, the understanding of how EEs evolve over time is still limited. In this study, we build on recent conceptualizations of EEs as complex adaptive systems and apply three methods from chaos theory, the Pointwise D2 (PD2), the Brock-Dechert-Scheinkman (BDS) test and Local Largest Lyapunov Exponents (LLLEs), to study the nonlinear dynamics of EEs. To illustrate our ideas, we analyze the development of the Singapore entrepreneurial ecosystem (SEE) from 1970 to 2018, using time series data on the monthly creation of new ventures. Our results suggest that the evolution of an EE can be considered as a nonlinear chaotic process that changes over time. Implications for theory and practice, as well as limitations and future research directions, are discussed.
Despite the critical roles of knowledge filters and knowledge spillovers in the knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship (KSTE), the impact of knowledge filters on knowledge spillovers at the firm level remains underexplored. This article thus extends the KSTE to the firm level by directly investigating the effects of knowledge filters on knowledge spillovers (employee venturing behaviors) in incumbent firms. Moreover, based on the KSTE and institutional theory, we examine how regulatory institution (government support) and the enforceability of it (government transparency) moderate the effect of knowledge filters in incumbent firms on their employee venturing behaviors. We collect survey data from the Chinese pharmaceutical industry as it is knowledge intensive and entrepreneurially active by using a multi-informant method, that is, two senior managers from every responding company were interviewed on site by using structured questionnaires. To further minimize bias, we combine the survey data with provincial secondary data to test research hypotheses. Our findings reveal that the positive link between incumbent firms’ knowledge filters and employee venturing behaviors is enhanced by government policy support and government tax support. Furthermore, government transparency strengthens the moderating effect of government policy support whereas it weakens the moderating role of government tax support on the link between knowledge filters and employee venturing behaviors. Overall, this article explores the key proposition of the KSTE framework at the firm level, thus constructing the microfoundation of the KSTE, and substantiates the importance of integrating regulatory institutions into the firm-level KSTE.
This paper contributes to the debate on knowledge spillover in the university-based entrepreneurial ecosystem, with the aim to investigate its role for the development of an entrepreneurial mindset in students. Starting from the literature stream on entrepreneurial university and knowledge spillover entrepreneurship, the paper analyses the process of intentional and unintentional knowledge flows among students, industries, and institutions. Through a case study, the Contamination Lab (CLab@Salento) at the University of Salento in Italy, the paper describes the learning processes activated within an educational programme to create an entrepreneurial mindset in students and analyses the different knowledge flows among the stakeholders populating the local entrepreneurial ecosystem. Findings demonstrated the crucial role of CLab@Salento for intentional and unintentional knowledge spillovers, where knowledge contamination processes such as business idea presentation, open innovation challenge, contamination workshop, enterprise projects, business game, and students@abroad are important vehicles for effective knowledge transfer in an entrepreneurial ecosystem.
This paper develops and applies a new evaluative approach to local entrepreneurial ecosystems, as configural narratives. We examine how configurations of local entrepreneurial ecosystem attributes, as evaluated by local experts, support or hinder the emergence of new and innovative firms. Drawing on sociology of place, we present a novel configurational comparative analysis of local experts’ evaluation of their ecosystems in Chile. Our proposed approach to entrepreneurial ecosystems helps us uncover two counterintuitive findings and so elaborate on interferences that have not yet been addressed through conventional concepts, methods and data. First, we reveal three distinct ecosystem types explaining different local levels of new firm activity: Active self-propelled, Indulged and Passive self-absorbed. The internal composition of these types change when only innovative and high growth firms are taken into consideration. Second, we show why, when seen as configural narratives, ecosystem attributes that have been assumed necessary play only a peripheral role. Our study demonstrates a split picture against seemingly similar outcomes and homogenous local contexts, contributing to the advancement of entrepreneurial ecosystem theory, observation and assessment.
Research on the formal role of universities in stimulating regional economic development is relatively recent. However, the role of universities in contributing to regional technological and service variety is underresearched. In this study, we use a data set that has wide geographic coverage. The analysis provides a comprehensive understanding of the UK-wide contribution of university spin-offs (USOs) to the innovation capacity of their host regional economies. We argue that the survival and growth of USOs imply embeddedness in innovation ecosystems in a region. The findings show that the majority of firms in the sample are relatively young, small in size, and are still at the early stages of their life cycle. Hence, the products and services that are offered are fairly small in number. Nevertheless, their products/services based on university research have the potential for value capture by other firms thus implying contributions to a range of related and unrelated industry sectors within a region or beyond the local.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of personal and inter-firm networks and the elements that contribute to the formation and management of these networks for regional small businesses.
Design/methodology/approach
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 small business owners located in regional areas.
Findings
The findings highlight key characteristics of regional small business owners’ networks. Findings indicated that participants relied strongly on their personal networks for business purposes. This study shows that while personal networks adapted and changed into informal inter-firm networks, weak-tie relations within inter-firm networks were unlikely to develop into close personal networks. Novel findings also include a preference for “regional interactions” and included regular collaboration with local business competitors. Although the participants used social media to manage their business through personal networks, results confirmed there was a lack of awareness of the benefits of inter-firm networks with businesses outside the local region.
Originality/value
While it is acknowledged small business owners use personal and inter-firm connections to maintain and grow their business, there is a lack of research examining both of these networks in the same study. This research addresses this gap and presents five propositions as a useful direction for future research. This paper adds to the evolution of existing knowledge by expanding understanding of the formation of business networks and conditions of business trust relations within a regional context.
In this study, we analyse the role played by investment managers from University-focused Venture Capital firms (UVCs) in knowledge spillovers in Entrepreneurial University Ecosystems (EUEs). Data from fifteen in-depth interviews with key agents of the EUEs in England was examined through the lens of the Knowledge Spillover Theory of Entrepreneurship, using Social Network Analysis and qualitative analysis. We identified the emerging role of UVCs as key knowledge intermediaries in developing and sustaining EUEs, concluding that UVCs are key to overcoming knowledge filters and maintaining dynamic relationships over time between entrepreneurial universities and University Spin-off companies. In this paper, we describe how UVCs act as social connectors, facilitating a two-way knowledge and technology exchange necessary in the development and sustainment of EUEs.
This article reports on a longitudinal process study of the critical role of anchor MNEs in the metamorphosis of a high-tech industrial cluster into a local entrepreneurial ecosystem. It draws on entrepreneurial ecosystem and international business literatures to frame the study of the genesis and evolutionary processes of an entrepreneurial ecosystem that emerged from two MNE subsidiaries, both of which had evolved into advanced R&D centres of excellence around a technology specialism. It shows how multiple new venture spinouts by former MNE employees introduced technological heterogeneity that catalysed into a resilient entrepreneurial ecosystem. The theoretical and policy implications that can be drawn from this case study emphasize the existence of both technology specialism and heterogeneity for resilience in an entrepreneurial ecosystem, and that reaching such a position is evolutionary in nature.