Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Dynamics and Innovation Management
Summary
Entrepreneurial ecosystem dynamics encompass the continual interplay among entrepreneurs, investors, knowledge institutions, policy bodies and support organisations within a defined geography or sector. These interactions generate resource flows, knowledge spill-overs and normative pressures that influence opportunity recognition, venture creation and firm scaling. Innovation management within such ecosystems involves orchestrating ideation, research and development, technology transfer and commercialisation in ways that align with ecosystem strengths and address systemic gaps. Recent conceptual advances view these ecosystems as complex adaptive systems that progress through lifecycle stages—from emergence and rapid growth, through maturation and potential decline, to renewal—each stage characterised by shifting balances of new venture formation, incumbents’ intrapreneurial activity and governance structures. Digital platforms, sustainability imperatives and global networks have further reshaped ecosystem boundaries, accelerating information diffusion but also creating novel coordination challenges. Effective policy and managerial interventions thus require system-level metrics, a transdisciplinary lens on sustainability, and governance frameworks that can harness both entrepreneurial experimentation and institutional stability. By integrating insights from complexity science, sustainability studies and innovation management, research increasingly emphasises the co-evolution of ecosystem actors and their collective capacity to drive regional prosperity and address grand challenges.
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Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Dynamics and Innovation Management publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in entrepreneurial ecosystem dynamics and innovation management across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Entrepreneurial ecosystem: A network of actors, institutions and resources that collectively enable and constrain entrepreneurial activities within a specific context.
Innovation management: The systematic process of generating, developing and commercialising new ideas, products or services within organisations and their surrounding ecosystem.
Knowledge spill-over: The informal transfer of ideas or technologies between actors that drives collective learning and innovation.
Sustainable entrepreneurship: Venture creation and growth strategies that prioritise environmental and social value alongside economic objectives.
Ecosystem metrics: Quantitative indicators designed to assess the quality, interconnections and performance of ecosystem elements in supporting entrepreneurship.
References
- Connecting the dots? Entrepreneurial ecosystems and sustainable entrepreneurship as pathways to sustainability. Business Strategy and the Environment (2023).
- Entrepreneurial ecosystem elements. Small Business Economics (2019).
- Entrepreneurial ecosystems: a dynamic lifecycle model. Small Business Economics (2020).
- Measure Twice, Cut Once: Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Metrics. Research Policy (2022).
- Entrepreneurial ecosystems in an interconnected world: emergence, governance and digitalization. Review of Managerial Science (2021).
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