Small Business Economics Special Issue Development Conference

THE GOVERNANCE OF ENTREPRENEURIAL ECOSYSTEMS

Catania, Italy, September 29-30, 2016
 

Risultati immagini per small business economicsThe aim of the Small Business Economics special issue and associated conference is to explore and confront new developments and achievements in entrepreneurial ecosystems research associated to governance issues. In a broad sense, an entrepreneurial ecosystem regards the actors and the environment affecting the rise and diffusion of entrepreneurship at the ‘glocal’ level. It encompasses a group of firms, including start-ups, individual and institutional investors (e.g., venture capitalists, banks, business angels, informal individual investors), universities and other knowledge creating institutions, and one or more coordinating entities, such as firm incubators or accelerators and local policy agencies. While these actors derive substantial benefits in terms of scale economies as well as entrepreneurial flexibility, from being embedded in an efficient ecosystem and thus share broadly similar general goals associated to its development, their specific interests may well diverge. For instance, entrepreneurs and individual investors may have intrinsic motivations and private benefits which are not shared by other actors, while local development often is the primary objective of local policy making bodies. This divergence of objectives renders governance issues crucial.

In the last decades, governance has become a prominent issue for scholars in management, economics, and finance. However, entrepreneurial ecosystems, and notably the interaction between the different agents that operate within their arms, show peculiarities that have received much less attention by scholars interested in governance issues. It is an open question whether and to what extent the consolidated body of knowledge relating to both internal governance mechanisms (e.g. the board of directors) and external governance mechanisms that discipline managerial behavior (e.g. the market for corporate control) in large established firms can offer useful insights into the governance of entrepreneurial ecosystems, or we need to tap into new models and theoretical frameworks.
As a matter of facts, while in business practice exists a visible plea for more integration between entrepreneurship in ecosystems and governance issues, we have neither consolidated a body of enquiry nor developed one or more encompassing interpretative frameworks that coherently address the theme of entrepreneurial ecosystems governance. In particular, the dual role of governance mechanisms as monitoring and resource and competence enlarging mechanisms deserves a closer examination.
In addition, the rise of new start ups and start up ecosystems around the world has recently peaked up. For instance, the Startup Ecosystem Report 2012 argues that countries and cities are shifting from service-based economies to become increasingly driven by a new generation of fast-moving software and technology-rooted business organizations. Thereby, it is becoming widely recognized that entrepreneurial ecosystems are inherent drivers of innovation and new business energy and power. Successful entrepreneurial ecosystems usually foster the long-term view, process-structure recombination across boundaries, and entrepreneurial dynamics to shore up communities of entrepreneurs and investors who share the aspiration to cultivate each other’s talent, creativity, and network support. Therefore, effective governance of the relations between the different agents involved in entrepreneurial ecosystems has clearly huge practical relevance for fostering long-term growth.  

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