Regional entrepreneurial ecosystems: learning from forest ecosystems

Area of Science:

• Entrepreneurship
• Ecology
• Regional Science

Background:

• Theoritical development of entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) is nascent.
• Existing literature lacks a comprehensive regional perspective.
• Forest ecosystems (FEs) offer a valuable analogy for understanding EEs.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose the regional entrepreneurial ecosystem (REE) as an alternate conceptual framework.
• To analyze the socioeconomic activity and stability of a region's entrepreneurial landscape.
• To shift the unit of analysis from individual firms to the regional ecosystem itself.

Main Methods:

• Extrapolation of forest ecosystem (FE) principles to entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs).
• Development of the regional entrepreneurial ecosystem (REE) framework.
• Comparative analysis of regional socioeconomic factors and entrepreneurial dynamics.

Main Results:

• The REE framework integrates economics, social arrangements, physical environment, knowledge, and technology.
• It emphasizes the stability and change dynamics of the entire regional socioeconomic system.
• The analogy with FEs provides a novel lens for studying entrepreneurship's regional impact.

Conclusions:

• Defining EEs by their regional dimension, analogous to FEs, offers a more holistic analytical approach.
• The REE framework prioritizes understanding the interplay of compositional, structural, and functional elements within a region.
• Scholars can leverage ecological study insights to better grasp entrepreneurial change dynamics at a regional level.