In this section, I will describe the dissertation phases and present these in a consecutive format to make a storyline.
Phase 1: Introduction to the field
I have been following new venture creation from a practical standpoint, namely from entrepreneurship- and innovation-related policies and reports introduced by governments, the OECD, Babson College, and start-up foundations around the world, amongst others.
Coming from the start-up-rich nation of Estonia, I have always found it intriguing how
3.2 Dissertation process in phases 49
these firms are launched and developed and how the surrounding environment supports or hinders such activities. The main motivation to conduct my doctoral dissertation is rooted in my personal endeavour to describe a roadmap for novice founders like myself in order to gain relevant insights to crack the code on how to successfully launch a new venture. When I started my investigation while conducting my undergraduate studies, the EE research field was just forming and, in some sense, it still is (Velt, Torkkeli and Laine, 2020).
Subsequently, my introduction to academia started with a knowledge gap, and I needed to comprehend the ecosystem phenomenon at a deeper level. It was imperative that my research framework be established in light of the newest theoretical advances and built on the ‘shoulders of giants’. However, even though more than two decades had passed from the time when Moore (1993) brought the ecosystem concept from biology to busi-ness and management studies, it was still confusing for me as a newcomer to grasp the complexity of the topic. There was a great deal of uncertainty regarding which direction to take and on which to concentrate. After preparing my first review to make sense of the stream and connect it to new venture creation, the puzzle received its first corner piece.
There are many differences amongst the types of ecosystems, and it was not a mere buzzword, as noted by recent works (Jacobides, Cennamo and Gawer, 2018; Scaringella and Radziwon, 2018). Hence, it became clear that even though a ‘business’, ‘innovation’
and ‘knowledge’ emphasis is an integral part of new venture development, previous con-cepts do not focus on the entrepreneurship facet and could not elaborate the context in which or how this activity occurs. Therefore, the entrepreneurial ecosystem became prev-alent in related research.
Phase 2: Connecting the dots
An entrepreneurship focus is not something new per se as it is an important mechanism for economic development and has been the topic of debate between Schumpeterian and Kirznerian schools of thought; however, its role for the present context (e.g. the country level) remained vague until the establishment of the EE construct (i.e. National Systems of Entrepreneurship) (Acs, Autio and Szerb, 2014; Acs et al., 2016). However, this was not the first time researchers noticed an interdependency between entrepreneurship and its context (Van de Ven, 1993; Bahrami and Evans, 1995; Spilling, 1996), which makes the ecosystem a relevant topic to address the complexities, interdependencies and dynam-ics underlying the surrounding environment, the main purpose of which is to support en-trepreneurial development (Cohen, 2006; Isenberg, 2010). Hence, the EE is a relevant context to be considered when exploring entrepreneurship as an economic, societal and environmental value-creation mechanism (Wennekers and Thurik, 1999; Parker, 2009).
Meanwhile, acknowledging that the EE is the most appropriate construct to employ when focusing on new venture creation, I continued my efforts to gather and assess relevant literature to investigate the phenomenon further. At first, it was not a simple task because, as noted in the theory chapter, there were not many studies available using the search terms ‘ecosystem’ or ‘entrepreneurial ecosystem’; thus, I had to investigate the biblio-metric reference lists to uncover their lineages. Hence, I found that some researchers have
been investigating the phenomenon by observing and mapping structural constituents and components of entrepreneurial environments in certain localities around the Western world (Bahrami and Evans, 1995; Lichtenstein and Lyons, 2001; Neck et al., 2004). This became the second piece of the puzzle by enabling the exploration of the mechanism underlying the complex system, and my attention was drawn to its elements and condi-tions, which interact with and enable productive entrepreneurship (Stam, 2015). The more I dug into the literature, the better I became at the bibliometric review technique. Hence, this phase made me appreciate not only the groundwork but also the acquisition of a val-uable method to improve my academic proficiency. Thus, I was determined to continue working on it so that I would be able to produce a solid research publication based on this foundation (see Publication I).
Phase 3: Going for a deep dive
As I worked my way through the ecosystem concept and adjusted my sights towards the EE phenomenon and its underlying structure, I noticed that the deeper it went, the more sophisticated it became. Not only does the EE framework consist of layers of elements which have different effects on entrepreneurial action; these also include sub-elements that all play complementary and supplementary roles in supporting a variety of ventures.
It felt like I had opened a Matryoshka doll.1 Nevertheless, my genuine interest drove me forward, and I started to see that the EE construct includes elements that all have their own separate research streams (e.g. institutions, leadership, finance, networks) and that the EA layer includes all types of firms that benefit from their surrounding environment (e.g. gazelles, SMEs, high-growth start-ups, BGs). Now, it became clear that even though I enjoyed reviewing literature, I would never be able to comprehensively include all of the related studies under one framework umbrella. Delimiting my investigation became appropriate, and as described in the theory chapter, I decided to focus on the systemic elements to address the best-in-class firms with the most intricate requirements and study new venture development in the preliminary life-cycle stages in which the local EE argu-ably has the strongest influence.
Once the theoretical framework was established with its delimitation and research focus adjusted, I set out to search for the appropriate focus group to further my investigations.
Even though, theoretically, BG start-ups are rapidly internationalising firms with a focus on their stand-up and start-up stages, it was not an easy task to locate such ventures in practice. I turned to Start-Up Estonia: an organisation set up specifically to assist policy development to create a vital environment for launching start-up firms. I met with their consultant, and it turned out that they consider a ‘start-up’ any kind of firm that has the potential to become a success story. It was a vague description, but as I am able to detect which new ventures are BGs based on their performance, measured by speed, scale, and scope, I decided to introduce another important delimitation. Similar to academic valida-tion, I then employed peer-review logic by arguing that start-ups are new ventures which have been attested by other entrepreneurs, founders, and the wider start-up community to
1 a set of wooden dolls of decreasing size placed one inside another.
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inherently possess the business potential which might lead to a significant value proposi-tion. This argumentation enabled me to search for these firms in different start-up listings, which also allowed me to create a stratified sample and exclude ventures which were not in their start-up stage. This combination of considerations was crucial because the as-sumption was that if a BG is in its start-up stage, it might not yet have fulfilled the speed, scale or scope criteria; however, I could still make an argument for their BG potential.
Specifically, if the BG was much younger than three years old and did not yet have export sales or an international presence of scale, it still had time to fulfil these criteria. However, this was the case for only a couple of start-ups which had already rapidly moved to the validation stage, which indicated their potential to be an early BG. This is arguable, but the reasoning was adequate to include these start-ups, as well to enable the study of such BGs in their preliminary stages.
Moreover, I contacted some of them to have a preliminary discussion about my research and proposed that they join the study. There was a chance of failure because, as I learned later, many of them have been answering all sorts of questionnaires around that time, including one from Start-Up Estonia. Hence, I followed up by contacting the consultants again about writing my dissertation based on their recently acquired data. However, they politely declined, even though they admitted that they did not use all of their data for lack of a more sophisticated approach and analytical skill set. I then continued my negotiation with the start-up founders, and when they learned that I covered quite a few elements in my survey, they became sceptical about participating in my research. This was important feedback, as I was thinking to employ items and scales from previous empirical works for all the elements that make up the EE construct, but this made me think otherwise.
Hence, I adopted a minimalist approach to the survey questionnaire, which would still align with my research focus. Therefore, by incorporating a reduced version of the liter-ature review on EE elements and simplified data collected from Estonian start-up found-ers, I was able to publish my first journal article (see Publication II).
Phase 4: Looking across the sea
The Estonian results represented a first attempt to explore how founders perceive their surrounding environment and which elements are deemed critical for new venture dis-covery and validation. This gave me my first sense of what is relevant to their business development to use in creating the first draft of the founder’s roadmap. However, these results needed validation, and I thought that even though there are other start-up-intensive countries on the shores of the Baltic Sea, the best comparison would be drawn from Fin-land. As previously mentioned, it has a similar cultural background but a more advanced economy. Juxtaposing Estonian results with Finland would make it possible to understand more about the roadmap and compare and validate the founders’ perceptions from another country’s point of view. The main assumption is that in the preliminary stage, founders should perceive critical elements rather similarly, even if their comparative presence and context vary. I then started to compile the start-up lists and launched the same data gath-ering process. The results were quite fascinating, mostly because they aligned with one another by subsequently validating my findings. Overall, they showed that there is a pri-mary set of elements that are critical for development and other elements that are not
central in the preliminary stages. I also managed to detect both systems’ strengths and weaknesses and calculated their overall performance levels. From this comparative data, I was able to publish another journal article (see Publication III).
Phase 5: What if?
The two-country data collection showed that these countries have different levels of avail-ability of and access to critical EE elements. By combining criticality rankings with per-ceived presence, I was able to calculate each element’s performance ratios and group them in terms of the strengths and weaknesses of the ecosystem. Comparing this infor-mation for the various elements, it became clear, that these ecosystems can complement each other’s strong and weak points. Therefore, I began to ask myself: ‘What if’ these two small countries had the potential to converge to some degree and create common policies to improve their performance in nurturing new ventures and in supporting their internationalisation activities? For this reason, I introduced the ‘transnational’ dimension to the EE context and argued that in small countries where there is a high concentration of BG start-ups, which must internationalise to sustain their competitiveness (Cavusgil and Knight, 2015), policies should be in place to enable the formation of a transnational EE. I further advanced the study by looking at the organisational and international char-acteristics of BG start-ups and checked their variance to gain more insights into how these new ventures perceive their potential transnational environment. This perspective led to my final publication, which took the form of a conceptual book chapter (see Publication IV).
Phase 6: The plan is coming together
My knowledge and experience were lacking regarding how to build a start-up. For exam-ple, to do so, it was unknown to me which EE elements one needs to focus on as an entrepreneur to use time efficiently and mitigate the risks of misaligning one’s endeavours by concentrating on elements which do not support it adequately. Thus, this became my proposition: to join academia to shed light on EA and how local systemic conditions en-able the launch and growth of certain types of ventures. The research design presented has been the blueprint for creating a meaningful inquiry into building a founder’s roadmap. Most of all, it has helped me discover my inner researcher and further advance my skill set for working on multi-layered multi-phase projects. During my two years in academia, I have managed to attend many international workshops, seminars, courses, and conferences and discussed my research agenda with best-in-class researchers to learn, gather new insights and develop expertise on how to create valuable research. It has been an interesting journey indeed.
Now, I am in the final stages of aligning my research steps with its intended agenda. On the one hand, the state of the art from previous research has been a continuous effort of following where EE research is heading and in what research future studies should be engaged. Bibliometric and literature reviews have become an academic roadmap to help me position my research efforts, given me guidance to better orientate myself in the re-search community, and assisted in setting new objectives to advance my career. On the other hand, the empirical investigation has enabled me to work with interesting topics and