Ecosystem as the Source of Entrepreneurial Opportunities

The Emergence of an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem: The Interplay between Early Entrepreneurial Activity and Public Policy in the Korean Online Gaming Industry, 2023

As drivers of economic growth, entrepreneurial ecosystems are an important focus of research. We propose a new theoretical perspective, in which the formation of entrepreneurial ecosystems can be tied the provision of pre-entry capabilities and complementary assets that are generic to participants within a regional entrepreneurial ecosystem but difficult to access to firms outside it. We apply this framework through a study of the formation of an entrepreneurial ecosystem focused on online games in South Korea. Through comparative research, we show that access to pre-entry capabilities was widely available across the online gaming industry, but that Korea was unique during the late 1990s in creating infrastructure policies to provide widespread access to broadband internet, which became an important complementary asset for Korean firms. A focus on mechanisms by which value drivers become available to entrepreneurs within a region is a promising approach to explain the formation of entrepreneurial ecosystems.

Strategy and Behaviors in the Digital Economy [Working Title]

The transition of the economies toward the digital era is determining the arising of a type of entrepreneurship based on factors and features quite different from established game rules. These changes disclose a series of opportunities for those firms which will be able to adapt at the new parameters and functionalities related to digital technologies diffusion. This contribution underlines some dynamics that should be considered from policy makers who aspire, on the one hand, to promote the emergence of a significant number of startups operating in the digital field and, on the other hand, to nurture the growth process of startups into scale ups. Due to social and economic troubles of many western areas, this latter aspect is even more important. According to a flourishing research stream on entrepreneurship, an interpretative approach for achieving the dual objective is to implement a specific strategy to create an appropriate regional ecosystem. The ecosystem represents a clear challenge within the traditional entrepreneurial policies frame, whose results have so far often been unsatisfactory. Despite its initially selective approach, from an ecosystem, many potential benefits can descend. However, creating an ecosystem for digital startup is a complex and burdensome task, which requires a safe and competent guidance, as well as the active involvement of many local actors.

Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2017

Rooted in the territorial approach, this theoretical paper offers a systematic literature review (SLR) of ecosystems based on a selection of 104 articles and books and their archetypes. First, we identify and discuss the four main types of ecosystems – business, innovation, entrepreneurial, and knowledge ecosystems – and indicate the presence of other transversal concepts. Second, we provide an overview of related and well-established theories from the territorial approach that have been largely omitted although they are ecosystem archetypes. Third, we identify the invariants across the four diverging streams from the ecosystem approach and the seven diverging streams from the territorial approach. Finally, we propose a research framework based on the comparison between key invariants from both approaches and discuss their similarities and differences that could serve as a foundation for future empirical research. This study therefore links the ecosystem and territorial approaches under the complex evolutionary system umbrella by creating a theoretical framework that reflects the complex interconnection between models, theories, and emerging concepts.

Local Economy, 2020

Entrepreneurial ecosystems are the focus of government economic policies around the world for their potential to generate entrepreneur-led economic development. The paper identifies key research questions and challenges to building effective public policy: (i) the limitations of existing data sources, (ii) the need to balance findings from quantitative and qualitative studies, (iii) the danger that entrepreneurial ecosystems will be just a policy fad, (iv) the narrow focus of policy and research on high tech firms and scale-ups, and (v) the need to balance research approaches between simplified models and a complex systems approach. There is a need for a better understanding of the diversity of policy contexts (level of government, country context) and model of ecosystem governance. A more granulated understanding of ecosystem thinking is required, with greater consideration of the diversity of actors and the institutional context, with more attention given to the heterogeneous nature of places and complex interactions between actors and networks. Looking to the future, the potential of new data sources and methodologies is identified. Future research should give greater consideration to the institutional context to understand how policy can better support entrepreneurial activity and the extent to which specific policies can be replicated elsewhere.

Environment-Behaviour Proceedings Journal

This research paper addresses the lack of clarity and challenges in applying the ecosystem concept by systematically analyzing and comparing two complex conceptualizations of entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystems. Through a literature synthesis, essential distinguishing characteristics are identified using an inductive approach, facilitating the understanding of ecosystem configurations. Clustering procedures are employed to identify distinct ecosystem groups, summarized in a table. The study aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystems to empower the research community and practitioners in developing effective ecosystem management approaches.

Revista Gestão & Tecnologia

Since in the today's economy world, the necessity of entrepreneurship in small and mediumsized enterprises is important in many countries in terms of employment creation, in this regard, attention to entrepreneurship and innovation in small and medium-sized (SME) enterprises, are the most effective factors in the development of economic and social systems of each country. The present study aims at identifying and defining the dimensions and components of the ecosystem of entrepreneurship and innovation in accordance with the requirements of the country in Iran, in order to develop and improve the strategies and policies for developing entrepreneurial technology in small and medium-sized enterprises. In this study, using an estimate from the entrepreneurship and innovative ecosystems and comparing it with the ecosystem of other countries with similar conditions to Iran, we will come up with a professional structure, including the common aspects of their models and criteria, and by examining the factors that play the vital role of innovation and entrepreneurship of Iranians, we will make the feasibility and design of the innovation ecosystem feasible in ICT industry as a strategic planning for the creation of an entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem in SMEs of ICT industry. This study will try to prepare an entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem with the help of information technology and encourage small and innovative business startups as well as innovation and entrepreneurship in an environment of entrepreneurship ecosystems based on digital innovation and communication and information technologies will be formed.

Small Business Economics, 2019

There is a growing interest in ecosystems as an approach for understanding the context of entrepreneurship at the macro level of an organizational community. It consists of all the interdependent actors and factors that enable and constrain entrepreneurship within a particular territory. Although growing in popularity, the entrepreneurial ecosystem concept remains loosely defined and measured. This paper shows the value of taking a systems view of the context of entrepreneurship: understanding entrepreneurial economies from a systems perspective. We use a systems framework for studying entrepreneurial ecosystems, develop a measurement instrument of its elements, and use this to compose an entrepreneurial ecosystem index to examine the quality of entrepreneurial ecosystems in the Netherlands. We find that the prevalence of high-growth firms in a region is strongly related to the quality of its entrepreneurial ecosystem. Strong interrelationships among the ecosystem elements reveal th...

Review of Managerial Science, 2021

Achieving and sustaining growth depends on the effective work of multiple and interconnected actors—such as e.g. governments, the private sector, society, universities, entrepreneurs and many others—who build an ecosystem, i.e. a social and economic environment for innovative and entrepreneurial endeavors. The underlying idea is that firms do not just compete with each other through well-developed stand-alone strategies to achieve advantages over their rivals, uniquely relying on their own resources, knowledge, and capabilities, but rather base their business models on shared resources, network externalities, knowledge spill-overs, local endowments, and governmental support. This introductory article offers a wide array of topics, methods and fields of application within the field of entrepreneurial ecosystems as well as a theorizing about potential fruitful future areas of research within the field, concentrating on legitimation and identification processes in ecosystems, possibly ...

Journal of Regional Economic and Social Development, 2023

Purpose and aim of the study: The purpose of the study is to determine the theoretical and conceptual foundations of the process of forming an entrepreneurial ecosystem. The task of the study is to summarize the theoretical and methodological support of the studied issues and to substantiate the methodological approach to the formation of an entrepreneurial ecosystem. Design /Methodology / Approach: The study used general scientific and special methods: scientific abstraction, analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, systemic and comparative analysis, structural and logical, an ascent from the abstract to the concrete, and the method of parametric estimates. The literature was selected using the databases Google Scholar, MDPI, Science Direct and Scopus. Main Findings: The analysis of the theoretical and methodological aspects of the entrepreneurial ecosystem and the formation of its structure shows that there is no systematic approach to determining the links and nature of interaction (including inter-level interaction) between different participants of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. It has been established that the structure of entrepreneurial ecosystems is unique and is able to provide systemic support for entrepreneurial activity by providing access to markets, finance, human and intellectual capital. Originality: The study reveals the process of formation of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the aspect of developing a strategy for the entry of new enterprises into it. Implications: The results of the study make it possible to synthesize the ideas of territorial models of innovation and entrepreneurship, to carry out strategic positioning of the enterprise in the entrepreneurial ecosystem in order to provide attractive value propositions for consumers in the long term.

The Oxford Handbook of Local Competitiveness, 2015