Reading :: Entrepreneurial Ecosystems

Entrepreneurial Ecosystems: Place-Based Transformations and Transitions

Ed. By Allan O’Connor, Erik Steam, Fiona Sussan, and David B. Audretsch

I read this collection a very long time ago, probably in mid to late 2022, but it got buried in all of the other stuff I was trying to do at the time. That’s too bad because this edited collection gave me a lot of insight into entrepreneurial ecosystems and the research surrounding them.

What’s an entrepreneurial ecosystem? In the chapter “Entrepreneurial Ecosystems: The Foundations of Place-Based Renewal,” the editors explain: “In abstract terms, central to the definition of entrepreneurial ecosystems are (entrepreneurial) agency and (human made) context (I.e., the ecosystem), especially the humanly devised constraints that structure human interaction (I.e. rules of the game, institutions) that shape the presence and form of important entrepreneurial ecosystem elements such as capital, labour and knowledge” (p.3). They understand the ecosystem as undergoing transformations and transitions (p.3), and thus they say understanding entrepreneurial ecosystems requires systems thinking (p.4). They add, “entrepreneurial ecosystems are an inherently geographic perspective” because they “focus on the cultures, institutions, and networks that build up within a region over time rather than the emergence of order within global markets” (p.5). In this perspective, the focus is the entrepreneur, not the firm (p.5); the entrepreneur is considered a central player or leader in creating and maintaining the entrepreneurial system (p.8). The authors overview differences between entrepreneurial ecosystems and the related concepts of innovation ecosystems and innovation systems (industrial districts, clusters, triple helixes) (p.8). 

The other contributions to the book flesh out this vision. For instance, in “Deconstructing the entrepreneurial ecosystem concept,” Daniel et al. review contributions to the entrepreneurial ecosystem concept, including business networks and systems thinking, and overview other concepts related to strategic innovation. In “Institutional dynamism in entrepreneurial ecosystems,” Fuentelsaz et al. incorporate institutional theory and business life cycle theory into the analysis of ecosystems. And in “Measuring entrepreneurial ecosystems,” Stam takes a systems view, reviewing the systemic conditions that are at the heart of such an ecosystem (p.175) and identifying some possible measures for those conditions (table 1, p.179). 

I found this collection to be a good introduction to the concept of entrepreneurial ecosystems, although not entirely accessible for someone (like me) who is not steeped in the economics and business literature. If you’re looking for an introduction to EE concepts, it’s a good place to start.