The evolutionary dynamics of entrepreneurial ecosystems

Abstract

Entrepreneurial ecosystems (EE) consist of interacting components, which foster new firm formation and associated regional entrepreneurial activities. Current work on EE, however, focuses on documenting the presence of system components, which means there is little understanding of interdependencies between EE components and their evolutionary dynamics. To address these issues, the objective of the present study is to develop an evolutionary framework of EE development that integrates important components from prior work and describes how critical elements of an entrepreneurial system interact and evolve over time. The value of this framework in understanding the evolutionary dynamics of EE will be demonstrated by profiling the EE of Phoenix, Arizona. The evolutionary perspective developed is valuable because it provides a sense of how history, culture and the institutional setting impact EE. It also provides stakeholders with action points to help maintain or propel an EE to the next level. This is a distinct improvement over static approaches that provide a list of EE ingredients with no sense of their relative importance over time. The proposed framework may also be used in a comparative context to compare and contrast the evolutionary trajectory of EE to better understand why particular places remain trapped in a specific phase of growth or continue to evolve over time.

Looking inside the spiky bits: a critical review and conceptualisation of entrepreneurial ecosystems

“…They also ignore the importance of entrepreneurial orientation within the population, a factor which is cumulative and path dependent but has a huge bearing on EEs. More work is unquestionably needed to help develop more nuanced methods of measuring the multidimensional issues within EEs (Best, 2015;Mack and Mayer, 2015).…”

Entrepreneurial ecosystem governance: a principal investigator-centered governance framework

“…Entrepreneurial ecosystems are evolutionary with culture, history, and institutional settings shaping them over time (Mack and Mayer 2016). There are different pathways to creating entrepreneurial ecosystems and certain actor roles are more prominent depending on the context (Kshetri 2014).…”

“…Research on entrepreneurial ecosystems to date has largely taken a macro perspective and has focused on such issues as attributes (Spigel 2015), environmental factors (Suresh and Ramraj 2012), evolutionary trajectories (Mack and Mayer 2016), global innovation networks (Malecki 2011), high growth firms (Mason and Brown 2014), environmental sustainability (Cohen 2006), clusters, co-creation, and appropriability (Pitelis 2012). Acs et al (2014: 479) define entrepreneurial ecosystems as the Bdynamic, institutionally embedded interaction between entrepreneurial attitudes, ability, and aspirations, by individuals, which drives the allocation of resources through the creation and operation of new ventures^.…”

“…Spigel (2015) argues that research on entrepreneurial ecosystems is under-theorized and -developed. To date, scholars have conceptualized different ways of how entrepreneurial ecosystems evolve and develop (see Mason and Brown 2014;Mack and Mayer 2016;Spigel 2015, Stam 2015Pitelis 2012). Such research has taken a macro perspective to better conceptualize and map the determinants and evolution of entrepreneurial ecosystems.…”

Construction of Government-oriented Maker Space’s Entrepreneurial Ecosystem ：A Case Study of Golden Port Maker Workshop

“…Bell-Masterson argues that the entrepreneurial ecosystem consists of four species of density, mobility, connectivity and diversity [5]. Mack & Mayer study the six elements of the Benson framework in the evolution process of entrepreneurial ecosystem in the four stages [6]. Dai and Ni use the Benson framework to research the elements of maker space's ecosystem [7].…”