Policies for Creating Entrepreneurial Ecosystems

Abstract

Abstract This chapter reviews evidence on policy to promote the development and evolution of entrepreneurial ecosystems. We argue that policy plays a pivotal but underappreciated role in the creation and development of ecosystems. From prior studies of entrepreneurial ecosystems and clusters, we derive three roles that policy can play to create healthy entrepreneurial ecosystems: seeding actions, creating opportunities, and creating support. Public investments in individuals’ capacity create favourable conditions for the emergence of entrepreneurial ecosystems. Policy can also create new opportunities that entrepreneurs can exploit beyond just fixing existing markets. Entrepreneurial processes that consist of collective actions of entrepreneurs and diverse stakeholders in entrepreneurial ecosystems can be promoted by local entrepreneurship support infrastructure shaped by policy. The three roles imply the transition of policymakers’ perspectives from strategic planning to the strategic management of places, in line with metaphors such as those of being a curator and feeder, as suggested by the entrepreneurial ecosystem literature. Implications for each role of policy are also offered.