Creating Bonding and Bridging Social Capital in Nascent Entrepreneurial Ecosystems

Abstract

Nascent entrepreneurial ecosystems are characterized by the lack of connections and interactions between various actors and have, therefore, weak social capital. To advance the evolutionary stage of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, interconnectedness among ecosystem stakeholders needs to be strengthened and diversified. While the entrepreneurial ecosystem literature emphasizes the importance of social capital for entrepreneurial ecosystem development, it has not paid sufficient attention to ‘how’ social capital is created within ecosystems. This study sheds light on the role of anchor tenants, central actors in the ecosystem governance of nascent entrepreneurial ecosystems, in creating ecosystem-level social capital. This study conducted two case studies of entrepreneurial ecosystems: Based on the within- and between-case analyses of these two ecosystems, this study revealed that anchor tenants create ecosystem-level social capital with a cycling mechanism of three consecutive steps: (1) creating bonding social capital, (2) creating bridging social capital, and (3) converting bridging into bonding social capital. The findings extend the current understandings of early ecosystem evolution by illuminating anchor tenants’ social capital creation activities and offer implications for social capital theory by examining the interplay between bonding and bridging social capital.