Abstract
Entrepreneurial Ecosystems (EEs) have attracted the attention of academics, practitioners, and policymakers, that attempt to unlock ‘a winning recipe’ considering the different EEs pillars in order to ignite entrepreneurship at large. Therefore, understanding the degree of influence of each pillar on Entrepreneurial Initiative (EI) is helpful in framing more effective policies towards entrepreneurship. This study aims to bring a new facet to entrepreneurship research, specifically on decomposing the transformation of EEs and the influence of EEs pillars on EI. The transformation of EEs is shown by a balanced panel approach based on the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) dataset over 8 years (2010–2017), comprising 18 countries. The study has several implications for entrepreneurship theory and practice as well as public policy since discusses three main issues, mainly supported by empirical results. First, the results show an unbalanced influence of EEs pillars on EI. Second, results also show the ineffectiveness of institutions in encouraging the desire to act entrepreneurially. Third, entrepreneurship needs to be part of the acculturation process evidencing the importance of collective normative. Therefore, providing the instruments and structures is not enough to encourage individuals to start an entrepreneurial journey. Generally, the results reveal that contextual determinants are significant in fostering entrepreneurial propensity to start a business. But the impact of the nine pillars is not equalized, revealing a fragmented influence with funding measures, R&D transfer, and cultural and social norms discouraging entrepreneurial initiative. Overall, the study contributes to the understanding of a multidimensional perspective on EEs and points future policy directions to overcome the lack of entrepreneurship and amend flawed entrepreneurship policies.
Highlights
Entrepreneurship emerged initially, linked to economic theories
The comparison of the antecedents of EEs shows the greater performance of Physical Infrastructure (PIN) and exposes the fragility of Government Policies (GPO), Education and Training (ETR), and R&D Transfer (RDT)
The results show that the government policies variable is the most relevant one, since it increases 17.264 times the likelihood of starting a business followed by market openness, which raises 7.639 times the probability of starting a new business
Summary
Entrepreneurship emerged initially, linked to economic theories. It has been extensively discussed in recent decades, as its contribution to economic growth, job creation, and promotion of innovation is unquestionable (Block et al 2017). Recognition that external conditions stimulate entrepreneurship (Content et al 2020) has contributed to unlocking the conceptual framework of Entrepreneurial Ecosystems (EEs), showing the multi-layered nature of the phenomenon. New business creation is a result of a number of interactive components and players, described as the entrepreneurial ecosystems (Mack and Mayer 2016). Composed of multiple forces, such as government institutions, academia, university-industry offices, industry players, business incubators, research centres, and venture capitalists (Xu and Dobson 2019), EEs are dynamic and evolutionary organisms where entrepreneurs operate (Bruns et al 2017). The complexity, diversity, and fragility of EEs (Feldman and Lowe 2018) have motivated several authors to formulate effective models that embolden entrepreneurship and contribute to building resilient economies (Spigel 2017)
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