The dynamics of entrepreneurial ecosystems

Entrepreneurial activity exhibits significant geographical variations within and across countries, both in terms of start-ups and scale-ups. As entrepreneurs typically found their businesses in the localities in which they are already living and working, and businesses, once they have started trading, rarely move to distant locations, this suggests that some geographical environments are more conducive to entrepreneurship while others inhibit it. The concept of entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) has emerged in recent years as a framework to understand the nature of places in which entrepreneurial activity flourishes. Spigel (2017) defines entrepreneurial ecosystems as follows: ‘combinations of social, political, economic, and cultural elements within a region that support the development and growth of innovative start-ups and encourage nascent entrepreneurs and other actors to take the risks of starting, funding, and otherwise assisting high-risk ventures’. However, the existing literature has several shortcomings. Despite some progress (Acs et al. 2017), the concept is under-theorised. It remains unclear how entrepreneurial ecosystems is distinctive from other concepts that seek to explain the geographical concentration of entrepreneurial activity (e.g. clusters, learning regions, regional innovation systems). Much of the literature comprises ‘superficial generalisations ... rather than [on] rigorous social science research’ (Stam and Spigel 2017, 2). Specifically, empirical studies are static rather than dynamic which does not capture the genesis and evolution of EEs (Mason and Brown 2014; Mack and Mayer 2016; Alvedalen and Boschma 2017). There is little consideration of the context in which entrepreneurial ecosystems emerge (Mack and Mayer 2016). The network of interactions of individual elements in the EEs has not been sufficiently explored (Motoyama and Watkins 2014). And the causal mechanisms are weak: it is not clear how the various elements in entrepreneurial ecosystems enhance entrepreneurship (Alvedalen and Boschma 2017; Stam and Spigel 2017). Accordingly, this special issue invites papers that address the questions: