A short syllabus proposal for an entrepreneurial ecosystems course with a pinch of Brazilian taste

I am at Utrecht University since mid-October last year for a six-month post-doctoral research visit. The focus of my research is on entrepreneurial ecosystems (EE). As part of my activities, I developed quite a lot of effort into reviewing the extant literature on this theme.

Recently, I was thinking about all the papers I have found in my literature review. I started my literature review effort more than one year ago, in December 2020. During the worst moments of the pandemic crisis in Brazil, having to work at home and staying inside most of the time, I started searching for EE journal articles in different online sources. This effort continued during my stay at Utrecht. The last figure I have arrived amounts to 461 papers published from 2006 to 2022. This vast set of journal articles was collected from 201 journals and have been published in English, Portuguese, or Spanish. 

My main search criterium was to look for the term “entrepreneurial ecosystem” in the title or keywords of the papers. This procedure, of course, has its limitations and, possibly, there are other published papers that I am not aware of in these three languages. Also, there must be a lot of papers in many other languages that I am not capable of reading. Anyway, figure 1 shows the result of my literature search. This research theme has shown a constant growth since 2015 and up to 2019. It seems that for the last three years, this production has reached its peak. However, the figure for 2022, related to the first three months, seems to indicate that the number of journal articles on EE will be over 100 by the end of the year (38 multiplied by 4).

Figure 1: Journal papers in English, Portuguese, or Spanish

It is unnecessary to say that I have not read all the papers. But, for sure, I have been through over ¾ of them. My readings led me to the view of EE as represented in figure 2. Thanks to Erik Stam, who is hosting me at Utrecht University, I had the opportunity of presenting my view about EEs to master's students at Utrecht University School of Economics during my talk about "Entrepreneurship in Brazil".

Figure 2: Entrepreneurial ecosystem: components and outputs

As you can see, the entrepreneur is positioned at the core of the figure, since stimulation of entrepreneurial action is the mains focus of entrepreneurial ecosystems. The geographic dimension is divided into four context levels: local, regional, national, and global. For each level, the figure highlights the main actors and activities expected to be present in an entrepreneurial ecosystem. Finally, the outcome of an entrepreneurial ecosystem is productive entrepreneurship that results in wealth generation leading to sustainable development.

The other day, I asked myself a question: if I had to design a short introductory course about EE, what papers would I choose from the set I have accumulated in this period of studies?

My first idea was to search at Web of Science applying the same criterium that I have adopted for my previous searches. This resulted in 485 papers. Then, I used the function “Highly Cited Papers” and the search indicated 19 papers. From this list, I tried to group the papers in clusters of topics and managed to create six groups of three papers, excluding just one of the 19 papers. While doing so, however, I noticed that the six topics would not be enough for the scope of a short but comprehensive introductory course about EEs. Then, I made a final step: I thought about what was missing in my opinion and searched in my EE readings file, those that I believed would complete the list on the missing topics. The result is outlined below, with 9 topics, including one with three papers about EEs in Brazil. Of course, you can use this list as reading guide for your initial approach to EEs or it can be useful, I hope, for you to offer an EEs course at master or doctoral level. Good luck!

1. An introduction to entrepreneurial ecosystems:

Spigel, B.; Harrison, R. Towards a process theory of entrepreneurial ecosystems. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, v. 12, n. 1, p. 151-168, 2018.

Stam, E. Entrepreneurial ecosystems and regional policy: a sympathetic critique. European Planning Studies, v. 23, n. 9, p. 1759-1769, 2015.

Stam, E.; Van de Ven, A. Entrepreneurial ecosystem elements. Small Business Economics, v. 56, n. 2, p. 809-832, 2021.

2. Pioneering contributions

Cohen, B. Sustainable valley entrepreneurial ecosystems. Business Strategy and the Environment, v. 15, n. 1, p. 1–14, 2006.

Isenberg, D. J. How to start an entrepreneurial Revolution. Harvard Business Review, 88, p. 41-49, 2010.

Van de Ven, A. The development of an infrastructure for entrepreneurship. Journal of Business Venturing, v. 8, n. 3, p. 21 l-230, 1993.

3. Entrepreneurial ecosystems' emergence and dynamics

Mack, E.; Mayer, H. The evolutionary dynamics of entrepreneurial ecosystems. Urban Studies, v. 53, n. 10, p. 2118–2133, 2016

Roundy, P. T.; Bradshaw, M.; Brockman, B. K. The emergence of entrepreneurial ecosystems: A complex adaptive systems approach. Journal of Business Research, v. 86, p. 1-10, 2018.

Spigel, B. The relational organization of entrepreneurial ecosystems. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, v. 41, n. 1, p. 49-72, 2017.

4. Revisiting the concept of entrepreneurial ecosystems

Brown, R.; Mason, C. Looking inside the spiky bits: a critical review and conceptualisation of entrepreneurial ecosystems. Small Business Economics, v. 49, n. 1, p. 11-30, 2017.

Malecki, E. J. Entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial ecosystems. Geography Compass, v.12, n. 3, p. 1-21, 2018.

Volkmann, C., Fichter, K., Klofsten, M., Audretsch, D. B., 2021. Sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems: an emerging field of research. Small Business Economic, 56(3), 1047-1055. DOI: 10.1007/s11187-019-00253-7

5. Space scales and consequences of entrepreneurial ecosystems

Acs, Z. J.; Stam, E.; Audretsch, D. V.; O’connor, A. The lineages of the entrepreneurial ecosystem approach. Small Business Economics, v. 49, n. 1, p. 1-10, 2017.

Audretsch, D. B.; Belitski, M. Entrepreneurial ecosystems in cities: establishing the framework conditions. The Journal of Technology Transfer, v. 42, n. 5, p. 1030-1051, 2017.

Audretsch, D. B.; Cunningham, J. A.; Kuratko, D. F.; Lehmann, E. E.; Menter, M. Entrepreneurial ecosystems: economic, technological, and societal impacts. The Journal of Technology Transfer, v. 44, n. 2, p. 313-325, 2019.

6. Entrepreneurial ecosystems and the digital world

Autio, E.; Nambisan, S.; Thomas, L. D. W.; Wright, M. Digital affordances, spatial affordances, and the genesis of entrepreneurial ecosystems. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, v. 12, n. 1, p. 72-95, 2018.

Song, A. K. The Digital Entrepreneurial Ecosystem - a critique and reconfiguration. Small Business Economics, v, 53, n. 3, p. 569-590, 2019.

Sussan, F.; Acs, Z. J. The digital entrepreneurial ecosystem. Small Business Economics, v. 49, n. 1, p. 55-73, 2017.

7. Research on entrepreneurial ecosystems

Alvedalen, J.; Boschma, R. A. critical review of entrepreneurial ecosystems research: towards a future research agenda. European Planning Studies, v. 25, n. 6, p. 887–903, 2017.

Cavallo, A.; Ghezzi, A.; Balocco, R. Entrepreneurial ecosystem research: present debates and future directions. International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, v. 15, n. 4, p. 1291-1321, 2019.

Wurth, B.; Stam, E.; Spigel, B. Toward an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Research Program. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 2022.

8. Entrepreneurial ecosystems and public policy

Brown, R.; Mawson, S. Entrepreneurial ecosystems and public policy in action: a critique of the latest industrial policy blockbuster. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, v. 12, n. 3, p. 347-368, 2019.

Dionisio, E. A.; Inácio Júnior, E.; Fischer, B. B. Country-level efficiency and the index of dynamic entrepreneurship: contributions from an efficiency approach. Technological Forecasting & Social Change, v. 162, p. 1-13, 2021.

Foss, L.; Henry, C.; Ahk, H.; Mikalsen, G. H. Women’s entrepreneurship policy research: a 30-year review of the evidence. Small Business Economics, v. 53, n. 2, p. 409-429, 2019.

9. A pinch of Brazilian taste

Fischer, B. B.; Queiroz, S.; Vonortas, N. S. On the location of knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship in developing countries: lessons from São Paulo, Brazil, Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, v. 30, n. 5-6, p. 612-638, 2018.

Inácio Júnior, E.; Autio, E.; Morini, C.; Gimenez, F. A. P.; Dionisio, E. A. Analysis of the Brazilian entrepreneurial ecosystem. Desenvolvimento em Questão, n. 37, p. 5-36, 2016.

La Rovere, R. L; Santos, G. de O.; Vasconcellos, B. L. X. Challenges for the measurement of innovation ecosystems and entrepreneurial ecosystems in Brazil. Revista de Empreendedorismo e Gestão de Pequenas Empresas, v. 10, n. 1, p. 1-10, 2021.