`Knowledge management practices' and path-dependency in innovation

Abstract

There is increasing recognition of the role that ecosystems play in supporting start-ups: particularly start-ups commercializing science-based innovations. In contrast to existing research that tends to focus on established ecosystems, this study uses evolutionary theory to provide a multi-level explanation for the emergence of nascent ecosystems. We employ a qualitative process-based methodology to investigate eight cases of science-based start-ups and their entrepreneurial ecosystems. Our empirical study allowed us to identify a range of retention mechanisms which enable the ecosystem to develop over time – but also, countervailing forces in the form of dissipative processes. Our theoretical contribution is a process model of entrepreneurial ecosystem emergence that makes explicit how retention and dissipation are simultaneous processes. Our model demonstrates the potential of evolutionary theory to understand the interdependence of firm-ecosystem development over time.