The ecosystem phenomenon is still a little-developed research topic, even though it has been around for decades and has been trying to find its way into the mainstream literature.
Specifically, the EE theme has been building momentum in recent years (Velt, Torkkeli and Laine, 2020) and is starting to converge at a level where it can establish a solid con-ceptual and theoretical framework for application. Even so, the relevance and suitability of EE to explain entrepreneurship and its interrelations and interdependencies with its specific surrounding environment have been questioned (Alvedalen and Boschma, 2017;
Brown and Mason, 2017). Therefore, by reflecting upon its shortcomings and gaps in the extant literature, I argue for the importance of the present research and show that there is a great deal of potential to further our knowledge in this new research arena.
Gap 1—Concept
The EE is an interdisciplinary theme which encompasses international business, strategic management, economic geography, and entrepreneurship fields; it is well-positioned to explain how regional systems influence productive entrepreneurial endeavours through collaboration towards creating value for local and global communities (Stam and Van de Ven, 2019). It remains a vague concept because it encompasses a significant number of other research fields in its underlying foundation. However, its current ambiguous status opens up many avenues for inter- and cross-disciplinary research. The EE consists of elements and individuals that make it a dynamic and complex system (Acs, Autio and Szerb, 2014) which is not easily investigated. To render the EE more comprehensible, it is vital to advocate for entrepreneurial progress and successful performance; in doing so, a supportive environment becomes imperative (Vallaster et al., 2019); in taking this stance, we should investigate how these complex systems influence new venture creation
17 from entrepreneurs’ perspectives and experience (Ratten, 2020). As mentioned, there is a set of elements integrated into the EE which influence entrepreneurial individuals and new venture creation. All these elements are integrated under the EE umbrella, where they interact dynamically (Cavallo, Ghezzi and Balocco, 2019). Still, clear analytical frameworks that address their causes and effects (Stam and Spigel, 2017) and consider all the elements in this complex system jointly (Alvedalen and Boschma, 2017) are sel-dom found. Research on individual elements can be seen in fields where they are repre-sented, but there are substantial differences in the division of attention amongst EE-spe-cific literature as researchers highlight some fields more than others. Additionally, this uneven concentration of elements tends to result in the overemphasis of the relative sig-nificance of particular elements and their role in the structure (Velt, Torkkeli and Saarenketo, 2018a). Thus, research concentrating on and reviewing the underlying dyna-mism, interrelations, and performance of the EE would be inherently misleading. Current efforts to describe these conditions have tended to be inflexible and purely retrospective, resulting in survivor bias, by emphasising the most productive environments instead of offering a balanced view of the EE phenomenon (Mack and Mayer, 2016). Thus, some newer concepts could be mistakenly omitted. Uncovering all relevant EE-related frame-works developed and utilised, as well as their components, requires a systematic review of previous literature.
The consensus on what a productive EE consists of is not settled, so it is vital to investi-gate EEs to capture the phenomenon in full. How vivacious entrepreneurial environments are constructed (Kshetri, 2014) and how they encourage entrepreneurial ventures during their progress (Acs et al., 2016) are still questions to be addressed. In its current form in the literature, there are many gaps in the EE when looked at on the aggregate level. To deal with its complexity, it is necessary to establish a context for further inquiry and to dig deeper into its construct and how it influences EA. When conducting a systematic review of the literature, it is necessary not just to pinpoint the elements but also to extend the scope to encompass its sub-elements to better comprehend the underlying mechanism of EE that nurtures new venture development. In previous literature, these conditions have been divided into framework and systemic elements, of which the former guide the envi-ronment and indirectly influences productive entrepreneurship, while the latter dynami-cally interact and impact entrepreneurial behaviour (Stam and Van de Ven, 2019). How-ever, as there are two layers of conditions with many sub-elements, it becomes reasonable to concentrate solely on the systemic elements due to their direct effects in enabling en-trepreneurial action. Hence, it is imperative to identify critical and non-critical systemic elements and sub-elements and apprehend their dynamic interactions with one another and their effect on enabling entrepreneurial endeavours (Motoyama and Knowlton, 2017;
Cavallo, Ghezzi and Balocco, 2019).
Gap 2 - Context
Advancing the EE framework regarding its construct would allow me to identify and in-corporate the most recent concepts regarding EE elements (i.e. crowdfunding and engage-ment) to shed light on their complementary and supplementary aspects. Comparing these concepts to those previously found provides more explorative power in terms of their
interactions, thus challenging the status quo and gaining better insights into the conditions supporting venture progress and international expansion across regional geographies (Zander, McDougall and Rose, 2015). Hence, following new venture creation in certain contexts (Cavusgil and Knight, 2015; Acs et al., 2018) would help to further elaborate the structural elements and sub-elements that facilitate risk-taking (Isenberg, 2011) in the quest for global opportunities. Doing so requires positioning such ventures in a particular context which is dependent on the type of EA I choose to address. Accordingly, there are many types of firms to look at in this context (Stam, 2015). The ‘born global’ (Rennie, 1993) firm, which, ‘from inception, seeks to derive significant competitive advantage from the use of resources and the sale of outputs in multiple countries’ (Oviatt and McDougall, 1994, p. 49), would be my preferred choice because these ‘young, entrepre-neurial start-ups initiate international business soon after their inception’ (Cavusgil and Knight, 2015, p. 3) and employ unique sets of resources and knowledge to do so (Fan and Phan, 2007; Gassmann and Keupp, 2007). These resources, amongst other endowments, are then acquired from local contexts and configured based on entrepreneurs’ intentions (Velt, Torkkeli and Saarenketo, 2018b; Ratten, 2020).
Furthermore, BGs represent an interdisciplinary phenomenon which covers international business, entrepreneurship, strategic management, and marketing fields. From the inter-section of the former two, a new research avenue was proposed (i.e. IE) to shed more light on these rapidly growing and internationalising new ventures (Jones and Coviello, 2005). However, IE is still quite a scattered and dispersed field (Knight and Liesch, 2016) and could critically use the integration of a framework such as an EE to move the field forward. It is notable that the concept of the EE has been clearly absent from previous literature on IE. For instance, reviews on IE (Jones, Coviello and Tang, 2011; Peiris, Akoorie and Sinha, 2012; Ribau, Moreira and Raposo, 2015) do not find any studies con-ducted on entrepreneurial nor any other kind of ecosystems. The most recent review, on the other hand, mentions the EE approach only once, in a policymaking context (Baier-Fuentes et al., 2019, p. 404), which is clearly not sufficient. Therefore, there is a clear dearth of knowledge regarding how an EE can facilitate the international growth of new ventures. This is remarkable because research literature on BGs indicates that the core concepts of many of the elements of an EE are individually crucial for these types of ventures (Øyna and Alon, 2018); therefore, there is a direct link. Hence, an EE framework would enable examining BGs from a more holistic perspective in terms of their rapid development and alignment with local endowments. Therefore, introducing an EE frame-work into IE to assess BGs would be an impactful contribution in itself (see Figure 1).
Similarly, the BG reflects a concept that, at its core, entails internationalisation to foreign markets as its main objective. This inevitably introduces the EE framework to the mar-keting field, but this is beyond the scope of my dissertation framework. Nevertheless, a recent study on firm internationalisation identified a mixture of conceptual and empirical studies following the EE and its elements (e.g. human capital, networks, knowledge, cap-ital, geography) (Dabić et al., 2019). To date, only a fraction of EE studies have focused on internationalisation; thus, further inquiries are needed in this regard (Ratten, 2020).
Hence, EE is indeed an important framework to be employed in the IE field, in general,
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and applied to BGs and their internationalisation processes, in particular. Likewise, it is important to acknowledge that the criticality and interrelations of elements shift over time, reflecting their dynamic nature (Mason and Brown, 2014; Mack and Mayer, 2016).
Hence, the EE framework represents an interesting viewpoint to add and investigate in terms of which elements and their links are vital for the respective stages of development (Alvedalen and Boschma, 2017). This movement between stages would render such ele-ments detectable, reflect their dynamics and provide evidence of their relevance as per-ceived by the entrepreneurs who drive their new ventures through their life-cycle stages.
All of the above gaps in the EE and BG literature have been utilised to establish the con-text for the present research inquiry.
Figure 1. Research positioning
In sum, I divided the gaps into the categories of ‘concept’ and ‘context’ to make a clear distinction regarding the status of the EE phenomenon and the relevance of a review study versus how I set up my research framework context for empirical investigation. During my doctoral studies, I have let these two streams of gaps guide my research framework, thereby reflecting a founder’s roadmap. Furthermore, I have aligned these accordingly to construct a comprehensive research agenda for further examination with the aim of intro-ducing the EE concept into the IE domain. In the next sections, I will discuss the research questions aligned with these gaps and the theoretical positioning of this research, fol-lowed by the research structure.