Abstract
The entrepreneurial ecosystem, one of the latest trends for researchers and practitioners, has the potential to increase our understanding of entrepreneurship. Existing research was conducted mostly in developed countries. The purpose of this paper is to bring to light the particularities of entrepreneurial ecosystems in two important city-regions of Romania, which should result in a better understanding of the specific context of this transitional economy. Starting from the models of entrepreneurial ecosystems proposed in the literature, we added an element specific to most post-communist states: political entrepreneurs, underlying the impact of their presence for the evolution and sustainability of entrepreneurial ecosystems. The research design was a qualitative exploratory study. The study focused on a sample of 21 entrepreneurs from two city-regions in Romania: Bucharest and Cluj-Napoca. The interviews were based on open-ended questions prompting the respondents to engage in a storytelling approach to describe their experiences as entrepreneurs in a volatile environment, along with their perceptions. The data were analyzed based on a descriptive phenomenological approach using thematic analysis. The main findings, resulting from the qualitative interview data, are that although entrepreneurship, both in results and mentality, is well-established, seemingly over the “point of no return”, the particular context is still making things rough for entrepreneurial activity. The results suggest a strong need for coherent policies at local and national levels.
Highlights
Understanding the absolute necessity, and preoccupied to design the ideal environment that nurtures entrepreneurs, researchers discovered lately a new violin d’Ingres: the entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE)
The purpose of this research is to bring to light the particularities of the components of EEs in two regions of Romania, which should lead to a better understanding of the specific context of this transitional economy
We extend their work adding a particular factor with sensible impact in entrepreneurial ecosystems struggling to function in these parts of the European space: political entrepreneurs along with their corrupt behavior
Summary
Understanding the absolute necessity, and preoccupied to design the ideal environment that nurtures entrepreneurs, researchers discovered lately a new violin d’Ingres: the entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE). Entrepreneurial ecosystems are sets of interdependent actors connected through complex interactions within a specific region to foster entrepreneurship and new business creation [5]. Aiming to reach stable economic development, governments, either on a national or regional scale, support the creation of sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems [6,7,8]. This type of ecosystem is composed of interconnected actors within distinct borders, determined to encourage the creation of sustainable businesses. The creation of such EEs should be a major goal of public policies
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