Entrepreneurial ecosystems: economic, technological, and societal impacts

David B Audretsch,Donald F Kuratko,James A Cunningham,Matthias Menter,Erik E Lehmann

doi:10.1007/s10961-018-9690-4

Abstract

Despite the overwhelming use of the metaphor ‘ecosystem’ in academia, industry, policy, and management, exact definitions of what ‘ecosystems’ really comprise are scarce and often inconsistent. Existing vague descriptions in the literature do not consider the boundaries of respective agglomerations, hence, they impede the evaluation of performance and outcome measures of respective ecosystems. This special issue is a first attempt to trace the ‘ecosystem’ discussion back to its roots—the ancient oikos, coined by the Greek philosopher Hesiod (700 BC), and aims to critically reflect on the usage of the term ‘ecosystem’, briefly summarize the extant literature and grasp the main features of entrepreneurial ecosystems, namely the economic, technological, and societal dimensions of entrepreneurial ecosystems. We intend to focus on the key elements that characterize an ecosystem, and hence, untangle under what conditions entrepreneurial firms shape and influence economic, technological, and societal thinking within their ecosystem.

Highlights

Entrepreneurs and new venture startups are increasing at an exponential rate across the globe
Despite the rapidly growing literature on ‘ecosystems’, there is literature that criticizes the inconsistent use of the term ‘ecosystem’ and its vague definition that adds no additional value to the scholarly discourse
We focused on the key elements that characterize an ecosystem, and attempted to untangle under what conditions entrepreneurial firms shape and influence economic, technological, and societal thinking within their ecosystem

Summary

Introduction

Entrepreneurs and new venture startups are increasing at an exponential rate across the globe. The attention on ecosystems and the intellectual ferment that it has generated in the last decades motivates the need to go back to lineages of the ecosystem metaphor and to shed some light to this exploding topic in academia (see Fig. 1) This special issue aims to briefly summarize the extant literature and to identify and articulate the main features of ecosystems, namely the economic, technological, and societal dimensions of ecosystems, as identified by Hesiod, who coined the term ‘ecosystem’ about 700 BC. We focus on the Greek philosopher Hesiod, who coined the metaphor ‘ecosystem’ and we refer to his analytical work on resource allocation and efficiency in a bounded area, the oikos

The popularity of ecosystems

Themes and contributions

Future avenues of research

Conclusion