Perceptions of entrepreneurial ecosystems in remote islands and core regions

Abstract

ABSTRACT:The existence of an effective entrepreneurial ecosystem is important for economic development and growth. This study considers how entrepreneurial ecosystems are perceived and operate in different locations focusing on remote islands compared to core/central regions. In particular, this study focuses on two remote island economies (the Canary Islands, in Spain, and Madeira, in Portugal), compared with Catalonia and Lisbon which are two core regions in Spain and Portugal. The evidence, based on a large-scale survey, shows that firms in remote islands perceive that they operate in a less favourable entrepreneurial ecosystem compared to firms in core regions although the findings show that there are significant variations across sectors of activity. Thus, the appropriate strategies for entrepreneurial action and for policy makers will vary depending on the characteristics of the ecosystem.

Uncovering the building blocks of rural entrepreneurship: A comprehensive framework for mapping the components of rural entrepreneurial ecosystems

“…“Community” belongs to the actor category that often occurs with “institution.” Scholars have highlighted the roles of these two actors in EE, giving birth to new ventures [ 31 ] and regional development as outcomes [ 59 ]. Development has the most links within the network, which means that EE in a rural context extensively studies regional development.…”

“…This network also highlights regional characteristics apart from the community in the actor category, namely agriculture in the non-actor category. This is a concern for discussion, because, according to Freitas and Kitson [ 31 ], actors adapt to ecosystem conditions.…”

“…In addition, we used rural words as search combinations to distinguish between rural articles. Previous studies have mentioned other terms for rural areas, namely villages [ 29 ], small towns [ 30 ], and remote areas [ 31 ], along with EE. Therefore, we used keyword combinations of “entrepreneurial ecosystem,” and “entrepreneurship ecosystem,” as well as “village,” “small town,” or “remote area” to yield a dataset containing 30 articles.…”

A Preliminary Exploration of Factors Affecting a University Entrepreneurship Ecosystem

“…It was originally proposed by Roy Clapham in 1930 and adopted by Arthur Tansley in his famous article “The Use and Abuse of Vegetational Concepts and Terms” (Tansley, 1935 ; Brush, 2014 ). In 1993, for the first time, James F. Moore introduced the term “ecosystem” into the world of business and coined the concept of the business ecosystem (Moore, 1933 ; Mason and Brown, 2014 ; Neumeyer and Corbett, 2017 ; Daniel et al, 2018 ; Freitas and Kitson, 2018 ). He believed that the development of business depends on a range of stakeholders interacting with each other, such as suppliers, producers, sellers, market intermediaries, investors, governments, consumers, and so on (Moore, 1933 ).…”

Chapter 5 Envisioning a New Research Agenda for Entrepreneurial Ecosystems: Top-down and Bottom-up Approaches

“…There are striking differences between the prototypical ecosystems of Silicon Valley, Boulder, and Boston based on research universities, venture capital networks, and an innovative culture and other structures such as Calgary's oil industry ecosystem (Spigel, 2017). This is to say nothing about ecosystems that develop in the context of, for example, Chinese, Islamic, or other economic and cultural systems (Freitas & Kitson, 2018). These differences are rooted in regional social, economic, and political histories; however, there is very little clarity about how these trajectories affect the eventual structure of ecosystems or the practices entrepreneurs use to engage with them.…”