Have we oversold the Silicon Valley model of entrepreneurship?

Abstract

The Silicon Valley model of entrepreneurship has captured the imagination of the public, the attention of the public policy community throughout the world who want to emulate it, and the focus of scholars seeking to understand it. Entrepreneurship has enabled the Silicon Valley region to harness the opportunities afforded by globalization rather than succumbing as a victim. The purpose of this paper is to suggest that there are limits to the Silicon Valley model of entrepreneurship in addressing the most compelling contemporary economic and social problems and that a broader, more inclusive understanding of and approach to entrepreneurship might be more useful.

The influence of ecosystems on the entrepreneurship process: a comparison across developed and developing economies

“…Our analysis highlights the elements of entrepreneurial ecosystems associated with each developmental stage of diverse initiatives in developed and developing countries. Our results contribute to the academic discussion about the definitions/measures of entrepreneurship (Iversen et al 2007;Henrekson and Sanandaji 2019), entrepreneurial process (Busenitz et al 2014), entrepreneurial ecosystems (Acs et al 2017;Audretsch 2019), diversity of entrepreneurship (Welter et al 2017;Karlsson et al 2019), and economic development (Urbano et al 2019). A research agenda is proposed for the analysis of those gaps identified across the entrepreneurial processes and types of economy.…”

“…Our paper contributes towards academic debates in the field: (a) the debate regarding the entrepreneurial process (Busenitz et al 2014) and operational definitions of entrepreneurship (Iversen et al 2007;Henrekson and Sanandaji 2019); (b) the discussion about which elements of entrepreneurial ecosystems are of significance per type of entrepreneurship (Acs et al 2017;Audretsch 2019); (c) the analysis of the relationship between the diversity of entrepreneurship and context (Welter 2011;Welter et al 2017;Karlsson et al 2019); and (d) the relationship between entrepreneurship, environmental conditions, and economic development (Urbano et al 2019). We hope that our study also inspires researchers to extend the analysis of the reasons why diversity is so crucial for entrepreneurship and societal development.…”

“…Successful public-private formulae implemented in developed economies could prove to be good practices in developing economies: in particular, regarding financial market regulations, bankruptcy regulations, and regulations of the venture or business angels' networks. Moreover, in developing economies, policymakers should design strategies for the configuration and reinforcement of their entrepreneurial ecosystems based on their business structure, without imitating existing models (Audretsch 2019).…”

“…In the past 5 years especially, academic and public actors have focused on the configuration of thriving entrepreneurial ecosystems (Autio et al 2014;Acs et al 2017). It explains why the Silicon Valley entrepreneurial ecosystem has captured the attention of the international public policy community who wish to emulate it (Audretsch 2019). However, scholars worldwide argue that this model of entrepreneurship has several limitations when addressing the most compelling contemporary global problems.…”

Does entrepreneurship ecosystem influence business re-entries after failure?

“…Previous studies have explored some contextual conditions that foster highgrowth based entrepreneurship 1 (Acs et al, 2017a and b;Brown & Mason, 2017;. Notably, the Silicon Valley model of entrepreneurship has captured not only the imagination of the public, but also the attention of the public policy community throughout the world who wish to emulate said model, and the focus of scholars seeking to understand it (Audretsch, 2019). However, this model presents several limits when addressing the most compelling contemporary economic and social problems across the globe.…”