Another Silicon Valley? Tracking the role of entrepreneurship culture in start-up and venture capital co-evolution in Finland’s entrepreneurial ecosystem 1980–1997

Sakari Sipola

doi:10.1108/jeee-08-2020-0316

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine how entrepreneurship culture affects start-up and venture capital co-evolution during the early evolution of an entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) and its ability to foster the emergence of ambitious entrepreneurship as an outcome of its activity. Unlike studies that capture entrepreneurship culture at the national level, this study focusses specifically on the culture of venture capital-financed entrepreneurship and understanding its implications to the development of venture capital markets and successful firm-level outcomes within ecosystems.Design/methodology/approachRelying on EE and organisational imprinting theory, this study specifies characteristics of venture capital-financed entrepreneurship of Silicon Valley to illustrate the American way of building start-ups and examine whether they have as imprints affected to the entrepreneurship culture and start-up and venture capital co-evolution in Finland during the early evolution of its EE between 1980 and 1997.FindingsThe results illustrate venture capital-financed entrepreneurship culture as a specific example of entrepreneurship culture beneath the national level that can vary across geographies like the findings concerning Finland demonstrate. The findings show that this specific culture matters through having an impact on the structural evolution and performance of EEs and on the ways how they deliver or fail to deliver benefits to entrepreneurs.Originality/valueThe results show that venture capital-financed entrepreneurship and the emergence of success stories as outcomes of start-up and venture capital co-evolution within an EE are connected to a specific type of entrepreneurship culture. This paper also contributes to the literature by connecting the fundamentals of organisational imprinting to EE research.

Highlights

Entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) has become an essential and promising research topic at the intersection of entrepreneurship and economic development (Tsujimoto et al, 2017; Cavallo et al, 2019; Roundy and Bayer, 2019; Harima et al, 2020)
News reports between 1980 and 1982 (n = 4) opened up the origins of Silicon Valley through the activities of Frederick Terman at Stanford University and technology firms at Stanford Industrial Park. This was coupled with reporting underlining the importance of university-industry collaboration and support for industry research and development (R&D) in Finland, with mentions of Silicon Valley as a successful example to justify the claims
EE has recently emerged as a promising research topic of systemic entrepreneurship and a policy tool for entrepreneurship-led economic development

Summary

Introduction

Entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) has become an essential and promising research topic at the intersection of entrepreneurship and economic development (Tsujimoto et al, 2017; Cavallo et al, 2019; Roundy and Bayer, 2019; Harima et al, 2020). The output consists of different types of entrepreneurship (Morris et al, 2015; Stam and van de Ven, 2019) with an emphasis on ambitious entrepreneurship (Alvedalen and Boschma, 2017) via fostering the creation of high-growth firms (Spigel and Harrison, 2018) and, at best, unicorns (start-ups with over $1bn private or public market valuation) which both are suggested as key performance indicators for EE (Acs et al, 2017). The differences in context, affect the ways of the EE to support or constrain different types of entrepreneurship and related outcomes (cf. Lippmann and Aldrich, 2016)

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