Economic Development Through the Entrepreneurship Infrastructure in Ecosystems

Introduction 

Entrepreneurship is a critical source of economic growth and development that analyzes the new venture dynamics and creation depending on the interdependency among multiple contextual factors (Kansheba, & Wald, 2020; Spigel, 2017; Brown & Mason, 2017). The entrepreneurship studies date back to Schumpeter (1934) with an analysis of individual features relevant for economic development and the impact of contextual factors (Zahra et al. 2014).  

The concept of entrepreneurship was introduced by Joseph Schumpeter in the theory of economic development (Nasip et al., 2017; Canever et al., 2017). Since then, research and policymaking are aware of the influence of entrepreneurship in enhancing the national socio-economic evolution (Adekiya & Ibrahim, 2016; T.; Ahmed et al., 2020; BarNir et al., 2011; Cui et al., 2019; Hultén & Tumunbayarova, 2020; Jaafar & Aziz, 2008). The socio-ecosystems impact on economic, social, and political contexts supports the regional growth entrepreneurship (Spigel & Harrison, 2018).  

Entrepreneurship ecosystem analysis has an interdisciplinary nature with economics, management, psychology, sociology, and other academic fields. The entrepreneurship ecosystems focus is not in clusters, industrial districts or specific industry but considers a wide range of socio-economic, cultural and technological dimensions (Audretsch et al., 2018). The determinants of different forms of entrepreneurship might influence the economic growth of regions and countries (Ács et al., 2012; Galindo & Méndez, 2014; Hessels & van Stel, 2011; Stoica et al., 2020). There are positive effects between entrepreneurship and economic growth in developed countries but not in low-income and emerging countries (Valliere & Peterson, 2009; Lepojevic et al. 2016).  

However, economic growth may have an inverse relationship with entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurial ecosystem is a term used in economic geography and in the practice of start-up policies that may create some expectations on practitioners as other terms such as clusters, creative class, high tech industries and so on which are fuzzy concepts (Markusen, 1999). Integrating start-ups confined in high-tech sectors, in entrepreneurship ecosystem leads to a broader perspective of entrepreneurship promoting values of social and economic solidarity. Changes in values and societal norms are related to entrepreneurship in successful economies demonstrating the emergence of entrepreneurship-friendly social norms. Social norms estigmatice bankruptcy (Isenberg, 2010).  

Entrepreneurship ecosystem is of interest for researchers and practitioners in the economy, correlating with perceptions of founders that positively affect the success of startups (Khuong, et al, 2022). Research on entrepreneurship ecosystems has been conducted to analyze the effects of economic freedom. There is a direct meaningful relationship between economic freedom and entrepreneurial activities (Sobel, Clark & Lee, 2007).