Regional entrepreneurial ecosystems: learning from forest ecosystems

Despite the emerging body of literature on entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs), theoretical development is still in its infancy. In this article, we explicitly draw upon the analogy of forest ecosystems (FEs) with an EE to extrapolate the regional entrepreneurial ecosystem (REE) as an alternate conceptual framework. The REE considers a region's socioeconomic activity and the stability of its performance as a whole, influenced by partitioned interests of economics, social arrangements, physical environment, knowledge and the technology that each contributes to the community's industry and economic order. We contend that it is when an EE is defined by a regional dimension that it is analogous to the study of forests. In this REE analysis, neither the entrepreneur nor their firm are the unit of analysis, but it is the change and stability of the regional socioeconomic ecosystem itself that becomes the priority. Scholars, interested in the effects of entrepreneurship, can learn from ecological studies to more fully grasp the interplay between compositional, structural, and functional elements and specifically how entrepreneurs account for change dynamics. Plain English Summary When are regional economies like forests? Hardly a day goes by without the term 'ecosystems' being bandied about in respect to places, industries and enterprise. Like most terms it is easy to use without stopping to think about exactly what it means or what it implies for our understanding of how our economic world works. This article takes a deep look at how the research of forest ecologies may inform and transfer concepts and approaches to studies of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. We find that by adopting this stance the idea of an entrepreneurial ecosystem, as it is most often presented by academic publications, is turned upside down. In doing so we suggest the purpose, function, and effect of entrepreneurship with respect to how it influences our regional economies comes into focus.

Automated summary

Despite the emerging literature on entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs), this article proposes an alternate conceptual framework, the regional entrepreneurial ecosystem (REE), by drawing upon the analogy of forest ecosystems (FEs). The REE analysis prioritizes the change and stability of the regional socioeconomic ecosystem as a whole. Scholars interested in the effects of entrepreneurship can learn from ecological studies to better understand the interplay between compositional, structural, and functional elements and how entrepreneurs account for change dynamics.