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A critical review of entrepreneurial ecosystems research: towards a future research agenda

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  • Borissenko, Janna

    (CIRCLE, Lund University)

  • Boschma, Ron

    (CIRCLE, Lund University)

Abstract

The Entrepreneurial Ecosystem (EE) literature has attracted much attention, especially in policy circles. However, the concept suffers from a number of shortcomings: (1) it lacks a clear analytical framework that makes explicit what is cause and what is effect in an entrepreneurial ecosystem; (2) while being a systemic concept, the EE has not yet fully exploited insights from network theory, and it is not always clear in what way the proposed elements are connected in an entrepreneurial ecosystem; (3) it remains a challenge what institutions (and at what spatial scale) impact on the structure and performance of EE; (4) studies have often focused on the EE in single regions or clusters, but lack a comparative and multi-scalar perspective; (5) the EE literature tends to provide a static framework taking a snapshot of EE without considering systematically their evolution over time. For each of these shortcomings, we make a number of suggestions to take up in future research on EE.

Suggested Citation

  • Borissenko, Janna & Boschma, Ron, 2017. "A critical review of entrepreneurial ecosystems research: towards a future research agenda," Papers in Innovation Studies 2017/3, Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:lucirc:2017_003
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Entrepreneurial ecosystem; Entrepreneurial system; Networks; Entrepreneurship; Clusters;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship
    • M21 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Economics - - - Business Economics
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

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