Entrepreneurial ecosystems: a dynamic lifecycle model

The concept of entrepreneurial ecosystems has been used as a framework to explain entrepreneurial activities within regions and industrial sectors. Despite the usefulness of this approach, the concept is under-theorized, especially with regard to the evolution of entrepreneurial ecosystems. The current literature is lacking a theoretical foundation that addresses the development and change of entrepreneurial ecosystems over time and does not consider the inherent dynamics of entrepreneurial ecosystems that lead to their birth, growth, maturity, decline, and re-emergence. Taking an industry lifecycle perspective, this paper addresses this research gap by elaborating a dynamic entrepreneurial ecosystem lifecycle model. We propose that an ecosystem transitions from an entrepreneurial ecosystem, with a focus on new firm creation, towards a business ecosystem, with a core focus on the internal commercialization of knowledge, i.e., intrapreneurial activities, and vice versa. Our dynamic model thus captures the oscillation that occurs among entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs through the different phases of an ecosystem’s lifecycle. Our dynamic lifecycle model may thus serve as a starting point for future empirical studies focusing on ecosystems and provide the basis for a further understanding of the interrelatedness between and co-existence of new and incumbent firms

Guest editorial

Purpose: This paper examines and discusses the need for micro-level analyses of academic entrepreneurship and outlines a micro-level research agenda for the study of academic entrepreneurship. Design/methodology/approach: Based on a review of academic literature on academic entrepreneurship, this study focuses on individual actors and suggests some future research agendas. Findings: The authors highlight that more studies dealing with academic entrepreneurship need to take a micro-level perspective, thereby outline several fruitful avenues of research: (1) star scientists and principal investigators, (2) TTO professionals, (3) graduate entrepreneurs, (4) university administrators, (5) policy makers and funders as well as (6) micro-level organisational routines. Practical implications: This paper derives three main implications for management practice and policy. First, there is a real need to develop the managerial skills, competencies and capabilities of scientists and individuals. Second, policy makers need to ensure the necessary resources to pursue a paradigm shift towards more entrepreneurial thinking and action and create adequate incentives. Third, firms need to offer support and guidance on how to best commercialise and transfer scientific knowledge and ideally complement support structures of universities and research institutes. Originality/value: This paper provides an organising framework for the study of micro-level academic entrepreneurship and emphasises the need to focus further on individual actors and how their actions, behaviours and approaches contribute to academic entrepreneurship in different institutional, environmental and cultural contexts

Value Creation in the Quadruple Helix: A Micro Level Conceptual Model of Principal Investigators as Value Creators

Conceptual models of the quadruple helix have largely taken a macro perspective. While these macro perspectives have motivated debates and studies, they fall short in understanding value creation activities at the micro level of the quadruple helix. The purpose of this paper is to address this deficit by focusing on the fundamental research question how value is collectively created, captured, and enhanced at the micro level of the quadruple helix. Drawing on theoretical considerations centred on simmelian ties, boundary work and value postures (motives, creation, destruction, and drivers), we develop a micro level conceptual model of principal investigators (PIs) as value creators in the quadruple helix. Scientists in the PI role engage in boundary spanning activities with other quadruple helix actors. This engagement builds strong simmelian ties with these actors and enables PIs to develop collective value motives by bridging diverse knowledge and creating common value motives. Our conceptual model extends our understanding of the quadruple helix at the micro level and highlights the importance of PIs having strong simmelian in order to realise collective and individual value motives. The paper concludes with some suggestions for future avenues of research on this important topic

Transformative change in higher education: entrepreneurial universities and high-technology entrepreneurship

Public policies focusing on the higher education landscape often pursue a paradigm shift among universities that may ultimately lead to the transformation towards entrepreneurial universities. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether a higher education policy-induced transformation significantly influenced regional high-technology entrepreneurship. We thereby focus on the German Excellence Initiative, a higher education policy intervention designed to foster and support the transformative change of German universities towards an entrepreneurial paradigm. Our results reveal that the German Excellence Initiative had a positive and significant impact on regional high-technology entrepreneurship. Our results further show that the higher the interaction with industry, the more conducive universities become for regional high-technology entrepreneurship. In addition, universities’ overarching scientific focus decisively affects regional high-technology entrepreneurship. Based on our results, we conclude our paper by outlining implications for policy makers, high-technology entrepreneurs and university managers as well as present future avenues for research

How Principal Investigators’ Commercial Experience Influences Technology Transfer and Market Impacts

Businesses can benefit from university–industry collaborations, yet they rarely take full advantage of them. Scientists who serve as principal investigators (PIs) act as the nucleus of university–industry collaborations and partner with industry to cocreate value. We conducted a case study of PIs at publicly funded research universities, institutes, and organizations in Ireland to explore how having commercial experience influences how PIs approach technology transfer and how they develop new business models, products, and services. We learned that PIs’ prior commercial experience influences how they approach their research, project work, and project selection and affects how they commercialize knowledge and outputs from their scientific research––that is, patents, licences, agreements, etc.––throughout the project’s life cycle. In university– industry collaborations, PIs’ commercial experience can impact industry partners’ attempts to realize technology transfer and market impacts

The organizational architecture of entrepreneurial universities across the stages of entrepreneurship: a conceptual framework

Entrepreneurial universities contribute directly and indirectly to supporting all stages of entrepreneurship. The challenge for entrepreneurial universities is how they can best support academic entrepreneurs through these stages of entrepreneurship. This has led to the creation of different and often ad hoc organizational units within an entrepreneurial university. The organizational challenge for entrepreneurial universities is the selection of the appropriate formal organizational architecture to support the stages of entrepreneurship. The purpose of this paper is to examine the organizational architecture of entrepreneurial universities and how it supports the stages of entrepreneurship — latent, emergent, launch, and growth. Our conceptual organizational framework conflates the stages of entrepreneurship with the actual needs of university-based entrepreneurs and how these needs are supported through different formal organizational units within the organizational architecture of entrepreneurial universities. Therein, we categorize three types of formal organizational units — those that focus on exploration stages of entrepreneurship, those that straddle exploration and exploitation stages of entrepreneurship, and those that boundary span all stages of entrepreneurship. We conclude by discussing the resultant organizational tensions for entrepreneurial universities and highlight future avenues of research

The dynamics of entrepreneurial ecosystems: an empirical investigation

The purpose of this paper is to examine the longitudinal dynamics within entrepreneurial ecosystems. We empirically test how entrepreneurial activities affect intrapreneurial activities within entrepreneurial ecosystems, and vice versa, analyzing twenty-two entrepreneurial ecosystems in Germany from 1993 to 2016. Our analyses reveal that transitions occur among entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs through the different phases of an ecosystem's lifecycle. Our findings provide empirical evidence over time on the evolutionary dynamics of entrepreneurial ecosystems, demonstrating that an increase in entrepreneurial activities leads to a decrease in intrapreneurial activities, and vice versa. Our study offers guidance for policymakers on how to consider fluctuating entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial activities over time and builds the basis for future empirical studies to further advance our understanding of the dynamics of entrepreneurial ecosystems

Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Governance: A Principal Investigator Centered Governance Framework

Research on entrepreneurial ecosystems has largely taken a macro perspective to better conceptualize and map the determinants and evolution of entrepreneurial ecosystems, yet has neglected the micro level interactions of various entrepreneurial ecosystem actors. Recent criticisms of entrepreneurial ecosystems have centered on the lack of explicit case and effect relationships, attribution, units of analysis, the different use of network definitions as well as the static nature of existing frameworks. The purpose of our paper is to present a micro level principal investigator (PI) centered governance framework that addresses these posited criticisms and in doing so identifies the value creation indicators (benefits), PI capabilities, the problem categories (costs) and solving mechanisms that PIs can use to govern effectively and efficiently large-scale publicly funded research programs. In leading such research programs, PIs interact with different actors within entrepreneurial ecosystems and manage governance issues, conflicts, and tensions effectively at the micro level to deliver the anticipated benefits and costs for each actor. Our framework provides the basis for future empirical research on entrepreneurial ecosystem as we have attributed cause and effect at an individual actor level and conceptualized the governance challenges at a micro rather than at the macro level that overcomes the static nature of previous frameworks

A review of qualitative case methods trends and themes used in technology transfer research

The focus of this paper is to review the qualitative case methods that have been used in technology transfer research over the last 20 years from 1996 to 2015. Case methods allow for more in-depth analyses and provide the opportunity to place research into a certain context due to the selection of e.g. specific sectors, institutions, countries, etc. Using a systematic literature review of five of the top journals in the field of technology transfer research, namely Journal of Technology Transfer, Research Policy, Science and Public Policy, R&D Management and Technovation, it yielded 107 articles using the search terms: “Technology Transfer” AND (“Case Study” OR “Case Method” OR “Qualitative”). Our findings indicate a clustering of themes using qualitative case methods around technology transfer mechanisms and TTOs, academic entrepreneurship, university-industry collaboration, commercialization as well as R&D and firm knowledge transfer. We also identify trends in case method technology transfer research with respect to authorship, location of papers, sectoral contexts, data collection, numbers of cases and data analysis software. We conclude our paper discussing the implications of trends and themes and suggest that researchers need to reflect on used terminology and their utilization and postulate a need for more plurality of data collection methods