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11 – 20 of over 22000Jeffrey Muldoon, Antonina Bauman and Carol Lucy
The purpose of the paper is to examine the role of trust and distrust in social networks within the entrepreneurial ecosystem and to develop a conceptual scheme of the impact of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the paper is to examine the role of trust and distrust in social networks within the entrepreneurial ecosystem and to develop a conceptual scheme of the impact of trust and distrust on productive and unproductive entrepreneurship.
Design/methodology/approach
This study develops a conceptual scheme, founded on the social capital and resource-based view of a firm, by exploring the impact of trust and distrust on entrepreneurial behavior in a social network.
Findings
As the paper indicates, trust within an entrepreneurial ecosystem has a positive impact on productive entrepreneurship, while distrust within the ecosystem is expected to be unproductive and destructive (or potentially illegal) to an economy.
Research limitations/implications
The research implication of this paper is that it connects levels of trust and distrust within the ecosystem to the type of the behavior exhibited by entrepreneurs leading either to productive or unproductive entrepreneurial endeavors. As this study is based on the theoretical review resulting in a conceptual scheme, it requires further investigation of proposed interactions.
Practical implications
This paper offers strategic alternatives for entrepreneurs seeking to enhance future endeavors by strengthening trust within social networks for the mutual benefits of the ecosystem and businesses within it.
Social implications
This study highlights the importance of two social constructs of trust and distrust in maintaining existing and developing future ecosystems. It also reviews potential outcomes of entrepreneurial behavior and their impact on economies.
Originality/value
This research examines both trust and distrust (two separate social constructs) as significant predictors of future outcomes in the entrepreneurial ecosystem that go beyond productive entrepreneurship.
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Changone Kim, Sang-Hyeok Park and Byung-Moon Seol
This paper aims to focus on the changing role of universities in university–industry collaboration (UIC) for enriching the regional business ecosystem network. For this, the…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to focus on the changing role of universities in university–industry collaboration (UIC) for enriching the regional business ecosystem network. For this, the authors analyze “Business Clinic Day,” (BCD) a specific UIC program which provides a consulting service for firms, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) having a specific problem, by a group of facilitators. It includes consultants such as chief executive officers (CEOs), professors and heads of regional public or private service providers. This study illustrates that various types of networks are formed between consultants and problem-owners by facilitation of university after the program.
Design/methodology/approach
This study has analyzed with social network analysis how the business network was changed from clinic day program. Furthermore, the networks surrounding SMEs are extended to the other people connected to them. This means that the business network of SMEs had been diversified via the facilitation of “BCD” provided as UIC program.
Findings
Local SMEs have difficulties in enhancing their competitiveness in the market both in terms of internal resources and networks with external organizations. Thus, universities need to promote university–industry collaboration programs to enable SMEs to strengthen their competitiveness by building networks in local business ecosystems.
Originality/value
This study throws new highlights on the facilitator role of a university as a network promoter, in addition to the partner as a technology provider, in the regional business ecosystem.
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Leeya Hendricks and Paul Matthyssens
This study aims to investigate the impact of an institutionalized market context on platform ecosystem development. It studies how platform ecosystems are set up and evolve in the…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the impact of an institutionalized market context on platform ecosystem development. It studies how platform ecosystems are set up and evolve in the asset management industry and explores the role of the platform leader and selected core network partners in unleashing value innovation notwithstanding institutional barriers. A problematization lens is used to identify deviations between the management practices in this industry setting and the prescriptions and suggested practices in the extant literature on platform ecosystem development.
Design/methodology/approach
The research follows a retrospective longitudinal single-case design focusing on the development of a new platform ecosystem to which several PaaS initiatives are linked. It is based on 13 in-depth interviews over a one-year period triangulated with documentation and member checks. This study identifies the impact of regulations and norms on the early stages of platform ecosystem development.
Findings
In this institutionalized market, intensified interactions between carefully selected strategic market players focusing on platform development, lead to growing value innovation initiatives. The collaboration between core actors evolves “under the radar” with select partners and with lots of controls by incumbents. The value innovation process evolves in a non-disruptive way. Initially, the new value initiatives are rather incremental and focus on optimizing the present business models while slowly adding new peripheral services shared as successful signs of value innovation initiatives. This “submerged” direction enables platform actors to gather critical mass and stimulates co-evolution with key players.
Research limitations/implications
This paper outlines one vertical and looks at various principles involved during early stages of platform development. Because the authors have chosen a deep dive into one institutionalized setting, future studies could investigate a broader scope of institutionalized settings/verticals and a broader scope of management stages and related practices to replicate the study and corroborate the findings. The idea raised from hybrid platform ecosystem development also warrants further study.
Practical implications
Practitioners in institutionalized business-to-business markets find suggestions on how to overcome institutional barriers to platform ecosystem development and this study shows which levers can be used by core actors of ecosystems to strengthen established business models and simultaneously unleash value innovation initiatives.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the understanding of the challenges to be faced when setting up and expanding platform ecosystems in a highly institutionalized setting and identifies “levers” to create a smooth flow and snowball effect for platform ecosystem development. It “fine-tunes” the extant literature on platform ecosystem development to institutionalized markets.
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The purpose of the paper is to provide insight into how students navigate entrepreneurial ecosystems and make use of social networks as they create their own ventures. Such…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the paper is to provide insight into how students navigate entrepreneurial ecosystems and make use of social networks as they create their own ventures. Such ecosystems for students are an understudied phenomenon and there is a need for more profound insights into the issue in order to build better support systems for student entrepreneurs. The study aims to increase understanding on the elements that are important in students' entrepreneurial ecosystems and how these impact on students' venture creation processes, with emphasize on the role social networks play. Student entrepreneurs account for a substantial number of the startups that come into being at universities. Understanding more about how the surroundings affects this process is important for facilitating student entrepreneurship in higher education.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is qualitative and makes use of in-depth interviews with student entrepreneurs, educators and support actors in the ecosystems. Multiple actors were interviewed in order to capture different perspectives on the matter, with a total of 15 interviews conducted.
Findings
Two main findings arose from the study. First, it provides insight into elements that are perceived as important for student venture creation by the student entrepreneurs themselves, by educators and by support actors in the ecosystems. Second, it describes how the elements make up the entrepreneurial ecosystems surrounding the students, which serve as platforms from which students can develop their social networks. Therefore, the study highlights how such ecosystems can serve as sources from which students can gain access to ideas, resources and identity processes.
Research limitations/implications
A limitation of the study is that the interviews took place in one country. Consequently, further investigation is necessary to establish whether the findings are valid in other contexts. The research has implications for higher educational institutions, policymakers and researchers concerned with student entrepreneurship and student venture creation.
Originality/value
The study contributes empirical findings on a topic that is currently not well understood and on which there are few empirical studies. While student ventures represent a substantial proportion of university spin-offs, the topic has received little attention compared to research on academic entrepreneurship. The study represents a step towards enhancing understanding of students' entrepreneurial ecosystems and how students gain access to resources through social network ties within these systems.
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Diego Alex Gazaro dos Santos, Aurora Zen and Bruno Anicet Bittencourt
Innovation ecosystems can emerge and grow organically, but the process can also be managed through conscious intervention. Therefore, this study observes different motivations and…
Abstract
Purpose
Innovation ecosystems can emerge and grow organically, but the process can also be managed through conscious intervention. Therefore, this study observes different motivations and expectations for each group of actors. The lack of alignment between actors could have a negative influence on the development of innovation ecosystems. This study aims to analyze the coordination strategies of the actors throughout the life cycle of innovation ecosystems.
Design/methodology/approach
This study develops and proposes a model for coordinating innovation ecosystems based on the theoretical backgrounds of the ecosystem life cycle and ecosystem coordination.
Findings
This study argues that each stage of an innovation ecosystem’s life cycle – inception, launching, growth and maturity – demands different coordination strategies. Initially, networks are simpler and thus the coordination issues are less difficult. However, as the ecosystem evolves and the complexity of the networks increases, a more sophisticated strategy, such as orchestration or choreography, is needed.
Research limitations/implications
This is a theoretical study that recommends further research to test this model.
Practical implications
The understanding of coordination and stages of the life cycle of an innovation ecosystem can guide actors in the design of strategies for developing of ecosystems.
Social implications
The proposed framework could support strategies to engage civil society in actions to develop innovation ecosystems.
Originality/value
This study presents a framework to understand the coordination strategies better, considering the stages of an innovation ecosystem’s life cycle.
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Lisa Arianna Rossi and Jagjit Singh Srai
This paper aims to explore the use of digital technologies in enabling circular ecosystems. We apply supply network (SN) configuration theory and a novel resource pooling lens…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the use of digital technologies in enabling circular ecosystems. We apply supply network (SN) configuration theory and a novel resource pooling lens, more typically used in financial systems, to identify inventory pools, information repositories and financial exchange models among network actors.
Design/methodology/approach
Five in-depth circular SN case studies are examined where digital technologies are extensively deployed to support circularity, each case representing alternative SN configurations. Data collection involved semi-structured interviews to map SN and resource pooling configurations across each circular ecosystem, with cross-case analysis used to identify distinct pooling and digital strategies.
Findings
Results suggest three digitally enabled circular ecosystem archetypes and their related governance modalities: consortia-based information pooling for resource recovery, intermediary-enabled material and financial pooling for remanufacturing and platform-driven information, material and financial pooling for resource optimisation.
Research limitations/implications
Drawing on SN configuration and resource pooling literature, we recognise distinct configurational, stakeholder and resource pooling dimensions characterising circular ecosystems. While this research is exploratory and the identified archetypes not exhaustive, the combination of resource pooling and configuration lenses offers new insights on circular ecosystem configurations and the critical role of resource pools and enabling digital technologies.
Practical implications
We demonstrate the utility of the resource pooling and configuration approach in the design of digitally enabled circular ecosystems. These archetypes provide practitioners and policymakers with alternative design frameworks when considering circular SN transformations.
Originality/value
This paper introduces a resource netting and pooling configuration lens to circular ecosystems, analogous to financial systems, where cyclical flows and stock are critical and enabled through digital technologies.
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Abraham B. (Rami) Shani and Susan Albers Mohrman
This chapter provides a reflective synopsis of six cases focused on making healthcare sustainable. The nature and value of an ecosystem perspective is explored. The intent is to…
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter provides a reflective synopsis of six cases focused on making healthcare sustainable. The nature and value of an ecosystem perspective is explored. The intent is to apply and generate organizational knowledge to understand and guide purposeful design and learning.
Design/methodology
From five countries where healthcare is organized differently, these cases illuminate particular approaches to develop the capabilities for healthcare to deliver greater value to society. Each case is examined through the lens of an appropriate theoretical perspective. This chapter reports the themes that were common in the six case studies.
Findings
New approaches are changing the connections in the healthcare ecosystem, including the flows of: medical knowledge, clinical information, and resources. Common themes include: the importance of networks in the emerging healthcare ecosystem; the role of governance mechanisms and leadership to align the diverse ecosystem components; the engagement of dominant ecosystem actors; the need for adaptive change capabilities, and for multi-stakeholder research collaborations to generate actionable knowledge.
Practical implications
Taking an ecosystem perspective enables healthcare leaders to broaden their conceptualization of the changes that will be required to be sustainable in a changing society.
Social implications
Almost every man, woman and child is affected by the healthcare system. Increasing the sustainability of healthcare is integral to increasing societal sustainability overall.
Originality
Viewing the ecosystem as the appropriate focus of purposeful change departs from a traditional approach that focuses on the effectiveness of each element.
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Dario Cottafava and Laura Corazza
The need for stakeholder theory has been widely highlighted in the literature to develop solid strategies for a large organization. However, there is still a lack of user-friendly…
Abstract
Purpose
The need for stakeholder theory has been widely highlighted in the literature to develop solid strategies for a large organization. However, there is still a lack of user-friendly visualization tools and no unique approach exists to identify and engage stakeholders. This paper aims to propose a general methodology to co-design the sustainability ecosystem at the local scale, to explore it and to assess the impact of a large organization within the identified ecosystem.
Design/methodology/approach
The methodology consists of two main processes: identifying an ontological map of the sustainability topics network and designing the local sustainability stakeholders ecosystem. Both processes are based on a nodes identification phase and a nodes prioritization phase. The identification phase was achieved by engaging 160 citizens, for the topics network and nearly 40 relevant stakeholders, for the stakeholders’ ecosystem, with a collaborative participatory mapping process. The prioritization phase was conducted because of three indicators, i.e. the closeness, the betweenness and the eigenvector centrality.
Findings
Betweenness centrality results to be the best indicator to assess the importance of a stakeholder with respect to the whole network, while eigenvector centrality highlights the quality of the already engaged stakeholders of an organization, as it mainly depends on the number of links of the first order neighbors. On the contrary, the closeness centrality, when applied to a small network, seems to be not appropriate to assess the centrality of a stakeholder.
Research limitations/implications
This approach revealed some criticalities in the mapping process, as in the weighting link procedure. Further investigations are needed to generalize the approach to a dynamic one, to allow real-time mapping and to develop a robust interconnection among centrality degrees and the power, interest and legitimacy concept of stakeholder theory.
Practical implications
Obtained results for a case study, i.e. the position of the University of Turin Green Office within the City of Turin sustainability ecosystem, are discussed showing how social network analysis centrality degrees can be used to quantitatively assess the role of an organization within a stakeholders’ ecosystem.
Social implications
Centrality analysis allows identifying emergent topics/stakeholders within a network of words/actors that, at a first sight, should not be considered by decision-makers and managers.
Originality/value
A new methodology for stakeholder identification and prioritization is proposed exploiting online data visualization tools, participatory mapping and social network analysis.
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Mahmud Akhter Shareef, Yogesh K. Dwivedi, Md. Shazzad Hosain, Mihalis Giannakis and Jashim Uddin Ahmed
This study has conducted exploratory research to understand who should comprise the members of a resilient supply chain for promoting an entrepreneurial ecosystem of a startup…
Abstract
Purpose
This study has conducted exploratory research to understand who should comprise the members of a resilient supply chain for promoting an entrepreneurial ecosystem of a startup project and to determine the mechanisms for the balanced coexistence of all stakeholders. This is necessary to ensure mutual benefits for all stakeholders, each of whom has multidimensional interests. Additionally, this supply chain must be able to withstand any potential disruption risks.
Design/methodology/approach
This research has employed a mixed-design approach. In this context, the study conducted an extensive qualitative and quantitative investigation, including 30 interviews and a survey involving 180 potential stakeholders in this supply network, respectively in the capital city of Bangladesh, Dhaka. The analysis of the interviews utilized principles of matrix thinking, while structural equation modeling (SEM) through LISREL was employed to understand cause-and-effect relationships.
Findings
Network, platform and governance—these three independent constructs have the potential to contribute to the dependent construct, a resilient supply chain, aimed at promoting an entrepreneurial ecosystem for startup projects. It has been revealed that the management of such projects depends on the rules and regulations within the ecosystem. An excellent governance mechanism is essential for this purpose. To facilitate coexistence, the establishment of a platform is crucial, where cooperation among all members is mandatory.
Practical implications
For practitioners, three distinctive but closely interdependent issues are explored and resolved in this philanthropic study. It has unfolded the elements of any startup project with essential settings.
Originality/value
The identification of the structural dynamics of potential stakeholders within the entrepreneurial ecosystem of startups is largely absent in existing literature. Therefore, there is a need to comprehensively investigate the entire network, including their roles, responsibilities and associations. This study makes a significant and novel contribution to the existing literature. Academics and practitioners alike have ample opportunities to learn from this new aspect of relationships across three distinct areas: the entrepreneurial ecosystem, startup projects and the development of a resilient supply chain.
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Hannes Velt, Lasse Torkkeli and Sami Saarenketo
The purpose of this study is to develop a framework of the elements of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the context of born global start-ups. The study also applies this framework…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to develop a framework of the elements of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the context of born global start-ups. The study also applies this framework to uncover the ecosystem elements that impact start-ups during their initial phases of discovery and validation.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors used an online survey questionnaire sent out to several Estonian start-ups. Based on the responses, a dataset was developed and analysed using STATA and t-test methodology.
Findings
The analysis resulted in the identification of seven systemic ecosystem elements as the main factors impacting the launch and ten elements impacting the growth of born global start-ups. The systemic elements that comprise the ecosystem’s strengths and weaknesses were also identified.
Research limitations/implications
The cross-sectional nature of the survey method and the single-country context are noted as limitations of the study and offer future research potential for longitudinal settings, for mixed method studies and for comparative country data.
Practical implications
The study suggests that start-ups should function in a more collective manner to create platforms, promote one another’s products and services where possible and launch collective initiatives to enhance their visibility in the global context. Born globals should engage with their local entrepreneurial ecosystem, while remaining aware of its relative strengths and weaknesses for supporting internationalisation.
Social implications
Although the local ecosystem involves many stakeholders, this study helps identify key stakeholders that should be focused on by the government. Doing so will help create an increasingly comprehensive ecosystem at the national level – one that functions efficiently in supporting growth-seeking enterprises such as born globals.
Originality/value
This study combines the two research streams of the entrepreneurial ecosystem and born globals by directly connecting them with systemic elements. This study is, to our knowledge, the first to combine the two, thus making an added contribution by highlighting macro- and micro-viewpoints, with the former lacking in research on born globals and the latter in research on ecosystems. Thus, the present study helps in bringing venture creation and local ecosystem development research closer to each other.
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