No abstract

The development of start-up communities is seen as critical to the successful development of entrepreneurship in a region. However, it remains unclear what exactly start-up communities are and how they can be facilitated. Ambiguity concerning the geographical scale and membership of start-up communities leads to different conceptualisations. In this paper, we apply communities of practice (CoP) theory to understand how conceptualisations of start-up communities work and how they can be facilitated. To this end, we qualitatively study start-up communities in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra, Australia. Our results show that start-up communities that are confined to a particular workspace strongly resemble a CoP. Furthermore, many elements of CoPs can also be found in regional start-up communities. Finally, we find that workspace communities have more direct and top-down facilitation activities, while regional start-up communities have more indirect and bottom-up facilitation activities.

This article qualitatively identifies and explains the barriers that foreign cleantech start-ups can encounter when attempting to enter the Chinese market, as well as the possible strategies that can help overcome these barriers. We base our analysis on interviews with Chinese and foreign entrepreneurs and facilitators. To structure the analysis of such barriers, we use the components of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. We then explain the barriers using institutional theory. We demonstrate that they are caused either by the regulations in China or by the difference between Chinese and Western logics. We further recommend that cleantech entrepreneurs come prepared to China, remain flexible, associate themselves with reputable partners and take advice from those familiar with business in China. Cultural-cognitive barriers might be overcome by integrating the communities of foreign and Chinese start-ups. Regulative barriers can be removed by the Chinese Government, but this conflicts with the logic of state control.