Untapped Riches of Meso-Level Applications in Multilevel Entrepreneurship Mechanisms

Entrepreneurial action is embedded within a variety of complex social structures, not all of which can be as easily defined or measured as macro-institutional or micro-individual characteristics. Nonetheless, these multilayered structures collectively hold rich insights—before now underexamined—into the actual causal mechanisms that affect entrepreneurial actions and outcomes. To address this problem, we call on researchers to broaden their levels of analysis and direct their focus to meso-level structures. Although meso-level social structures are widely studied independently, these intermediate levels are seldom integrated into existing multilevel models. We argue that meso-level structures offer untapped riches for enhancing multilevel entrepreneurial mechanisms and discuss how social groups, associations, and other collectives operating at a meso level can play a more distinct, integrative role between the two ends of the institutional spectrum. To provide practical guidance for pursuing such investigations, we adapt Coleman's bathtub model to form a robust framework that integrates micro, meso, and macro levels of analysis. Our framework helps alleviate the shortcomings produced by an overdependence on either solely macro- or micro-level entrepreneurial mechanisms and offers fresh insights, as the intermediate level is more deeply integrated into this new framework.