Entrepreneurial Ecosystems and distinguishing features of effective policies – an evidence-based approach

ABSTRACT

A generalized belief in entrepreneurship as a source of economic growth ensures sustained interest in the entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) concept, capturing the attention of governments and regional authorities. This has generated a plethora of public policies aimed at creating and developing EEs, frequently without solid theoretical and empirical foundations for its design, with consequent policies risking being ineffective. To address this, we develop theory through a systematic synthesis of qualitative studies, exploring a set of EEs, from different countries, dimensions, and characteristics. Our evidence-based approach diverges from extant studies that frequently examine a single ecosystem. The results of the systematic synthesis led us to propose a typology of ideal-types of intervention, the ecologist, the creator, the promoter and the landscaper. These provide a path towards the development of a better understanding of the type of dominant policy intervention in EE, also enabling the study of policy evolution and its alternative trajectories regarding future development. By using an evidence-based analysis, we enhance coherence through incorporating diverse perspectives not as conflicting or contradictory, but as part of a structured set of policymaking options. This sets a basis for future research, especially related to the evolution process, and provide evidence-based advice for practitioners.

KEYWORDS:

• Entrepreneurial ecosystems
• evidence-based
• public policy
• systematic synthesis
• typology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. References obtained in 5/8/2020 from the Web of Science database using the search string: TS = (entrepreneur* NEAR/0 ecosystem*) we only considered articles and reviews written in English language. For our analysis, we used VOSviewer software version 1.6.10, for a reference co-citation with a 40 co-citation threshold.

2. When two documents are cited in the same article, a co-citation occurs, and thus it allows us to state that they are closely linked, the resulting clusters reveal the intellectual structure by mapping those strongly connected (Schildt, Zahra, and Sillanpaa 2006).

3. Stam (2015), Acs et al. (2017), Alvedalen and Boschma (2017), Audretsch and Belitski (2017), Brown and Mason (2017), Stam and Spigel (2017), Malecki (2018), and Spigel and Harrison (2018).

4. Alvedalen and Boschma (2017) and Spigel and Harrison (2018).

5. We decided to include in our search the variations of the words entrepreneurial and ecosystem since these naturally occur (e.g. entrepreneurial and entrepreneurship) and do not induce any deviation from the purpose of our study.

6. For our initial search, we used the following search term ‘TS = (entrepreneur* NEAR/1 ecosystem*) AND LANGUAGE: (English).’

7. Coded levels: inexistent, low, moderate, and high..

8. Detailed data is summarized in APPENDIX 1: Data analysis table.

9. For ease of reading, hereinafter we drop the term ‘case’, with the city name implying the case as well.

10. Arch Grants promotes a contest every year, the winners receive a monetary prize and several support services.

11. Following Doty and Glick’s (1994) definition of a typology, the ideal-types are not mutually exclusive, distinguishing typologies from classification systems. In the same line of reasoning, we labelled this dimension ‘Dominant type of policy intervention’ signalling each type may allow minor interventions from its counterpart.

12. EE researchers share an interest on the role of the external business environment with regional development research (Acs et al. 2017; Stam and Spigel 2017) and coordination and value appropriation with strategy scholars e.g. (Adner 2017; Iansiti and Levien 2004).