Gimme shelter or fade away: the impact of regional entrepreneurial ecosystem quality on venture survival

Abstract

Our study addresses a popular question in entrepreneurship research—to what extent does the quality of a region’s entrepreneurial ecosystem matter for venture survival? To tackle this question, we created a regional entrepreneurial ecosystem quality index based on five key characteristics: supportive entrepreneurial culture, access to finance, availability of human capital, innovation capacity, and formal support organizations. We analyze 301 United States Metropolitan Statistical Areas for these characteristics and measure the aggregated contextual influence on venture survival within these regions over time. In addition to analyzing the relationship between this index and venture survival, we also consider the moderating role of founders’ experience on survival outcomes. Our findings confirm that, in general, higher quality ecosystems shelter ventures, while ventures in weaker ecosystems are more likely to fade away and fail. However, for serial entrepreneurs, we find that ecosystem quality has a much smaller impact on venture survival.

The micro-foundations of global business incubation: Stakeholder engagement and strategic entrepreneurial partnerships

“…First, the focal phenomenon of the launching of technology business incubators has hitherto not been theoretically well understood. While the thinking pertaining to technology business incubation ( Mian et al., 2016 ) and to entrepreneurial ecosystems ( Brown and Mason, 2017 ; Spigel and Harrison, 2018 ; Vedula and Kim, 2019 ) has developed rapidly, the relatively recent international popularity gained amongst policymakers and scholars of multiple stakeholder engagement is challenging the traditional understandings of technology business incubation and acceleration ( Drori and Wright, 2018 ). Second, our aim is to develop a contextualized and nuanced understanding of the dynamics of stakeholder engagement and of its constituent activities by examining the mechanisms by which multiple actors—including entrepreneurial agents and various stakeholders—interact and collaborate in facilitating the launch of technology business incubation platforms and in fostering entrepreneurial development.…”

Regional entrepreneurial ecosystems in Chile: comparative lessons

“…In recent years, much has been written about the concept of EEs in both the scholarly and mainstream press (Vedula and Kim, 2019). The concept of EE has recently emerged to offer a systematic view of entrepreneurship activity (Cavallo et al , 2018).…”

Entrepreneurial Risk-Taking in Sustainable Energy: University Spin-Off Firms and Market Introduction in Northwest Europe

“…With regard to policy making and management by incubators (or spin-offs themselves), we can make the following tentative recommendation aimed at reduction of particular risks [115][116][117]. Firstly, adding an experienced business manager from outside to a founding team where PhDs are the majority; and secondly, on the institutional side, negotiation of more soft conditions of receiving substantial venture capital or loans, with special attention to refunding time that starts later or lasts longer, thereby reducing risks of too early market introduction and potential bankruptcy.…”