Looking inside the spiky bits: a critical review and conceptualisation of entrepreneurial ecosystems
Looking inside the spiky bits: a critical review and conceptualisation of entrepreneurial ecosystems
Ross Brown 0
Colin Mason 0
0 C. Mason Adam Smith School of Business, University of Glasgow , Glasgow , UK
1 ) Centre for Responsible Banking and Finance, School of Management, University of St Andrews , St Andrews , UK
The concept of entrepreneurial ecosystems has quickly established itself as one of the latest 'fads' in entrepreneurship research. At face value, this kind of systemic approach to entrepreneurship offers a new and distinctive path for scholars and policy makers to help understand and foster growth-oriented entrepreneurship. However, its lack of specification and conceptual limitations has undoubtedly hindered our understanding of these complex organisms. Indeed, the rapid adoption of the concept has tended to overlook the heterogeneous nature of ecosystems. This paper provides a critical review and conceptualisation of the ecosystems concept: it unpacks the dynamics of the concept; outlines its theoretical limitations; measurement approaches and use in policy-making. It sets out a preliminary taxonomy of different archetypal ecosystems. The paper concludes that entrepreneurial ecosystems are a highly variegated, multi-actor and multi-scalar phenomenon, requiring bespoke policy interventions.
Entrepreneurship; High growth; Entrepreneurial ecosystems; Entrepreneurship policy
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The spatial concentration of economic activity is one of
the most enduring traits of contemporary capitalism
(Marshall, 1890; Myrdal, 1957; Krugman, 1991; Fujita
et al., 2001; Scott, 2006). Rather than a world of equal
opportunity where globalisation and
telecommunications eradicate the importance of geographical
distance—the so-called ‘flat world’ thesis (Friedman,
2007)—the contours of the world economy appear
inherently and, enduringly, ‘spiky’ (Florida, 2005).
Arguably, technological advancement has accentuated this
process making the world ‘more curved’ than ever
before (McCann, 2008, p. 368; Rodríguez-Pose and
Crescenzi, 2008).
As a consequence of these powerful centripetal
forces, entrepreneurs are drawn to and, inextricably
bound together, with other core entrepreneurial actors
in close geographic, institutional and relational
proximity. In recent years, entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs)
has become the latest conceptual ‘fad’ (Martin, 2015)
seeking to help explain the dynamics of these
entrepreneurial ‘spiky bits’ (Neck et al., 2004; Isenberg, 2011;
Mason and Brown, 2014; WEF, 2014; Stam, 2015).
While this systemic concept is intuitively appealing, its
rapid adoption has tended to overlook the heterogeneous
nature of specific ecosystems. Given the increasing
attention being paid to the concept by scholars (Mason
and Brown, 2014; Audretsch and Belitski, 2016)
together with its increasing prominence in public policy
circles (Isenberg and Onyemah, 2016), it appears timely
to scrutinise the concept in greater depth to help develop
this important area of research (Borissenko and
Boschma, 2016).
Accordingly, this paper offers a critical review and
conceptualisation of the ecosystems concept by
unpacking its theoretical limitations, core dynamics,
measurement approaches and use in policy-making. In
doing so, it aims to provide a way forward for scholars
and, potentially, help policy makers apply the concept
more fruitfully. To highlight their heterogeneous and
path dependent nature, a preliminary taxonomy of
archetypal ecosystems is proposed. The paper concludes
that entrepreneurial ecosystems are highly variegated,
multi-actor and multi-scalar phenomenon which
therefore requires bespoke policy interventions. The
remainder of the paper is as follows. First, it provides a review
of the literature then assesses the definitional
ambiguities surrounding the concept. It then delineates the main
components of EEs. It then critiques how scholars have
assessed, measured and conceptualised the concept as
well as proposing a classification of EEs. In the
penultimate section, policy implications are explored before
conclusions are offered.
2 Literature review
Analysing the process of spatial agglomeration has
been a source of great fascination for scholars
during the last century and more. This began with
Marshall’s (1890) pioneering analysis of the
industrial concentrations in Victorian England which led
to the identification of ‘agglomeration economies’.
Firms accrue multiple pecuniary and non-pecuniary
advantages firms from spatial co-location with firms
in the same sector, notably the development of
specialised pools of human capital, the creation of
specialist suppliers and the creation of specialist
infrastructure benefiting firms in the same sector
(Marshall, 1890). These Marshallian externalities
contrast with so-called Jacobian externalities
(Jacobs, 1969). Jacobs argued that knowledge may
spillover between unrelated industries within
urbanised agglomerations as ‘ideas developed by
one industry can be applied in o (...truncated)