Felix Toepler (p)

João Almeida

While there has been a plethora of entrepreneurial ecosystem research on its elements and distinctive characteristics, the support processes within entrepreneurial ecosystems are still underdeveloped. We theorize about entrepreneurial ecosystems as ongoing processes by examining the distinct practices of ecosystem stakeholders for (i) providing resources such as innovation capabilities and entrepreneurial know-how to sustainable entrepreneurs and (ii) creating and developing the sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystem. Using a qualitative research approach, we conduct 35 semi-structured interviews with various stakeholders of ecosystems in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Our results suggest four distinct process dimensions that describe how ecosystem stakeholders foster sustainable venture creation: Enabling, Networking, Transforming, and Orchestrating. We show that those ecosystem processes run counterclockwise for direct startup support and ecosystem development. Our research contributes to the scarcely researched field of sustainable venture creation in entrepreneurial ecosystems. We conclude with a future research agenda.

P. Lelio Iapadre (p), Giuseppe Cappiello, Gloria Cicerone

Felix Toepler

This paper is motivated by the significant slowdown in the growth of GDP and productivity which has characterized the Italian economy in the last three decades. Following the competitive selection brought about by globalization and the recent economic crises, the Italian entrepreneurial system shows growing signs of polarisation: some (few) SMEs innovate, export and ensure good working conditions, while many "laggard" companies manage to survive only thanks to low wages, poor jobs, large margins for tax avoidance and evasion, and public subsidies. These gaps are intertwined with the widening of territorial inequalities in the Italian socio-economic system.
The Abruzzo region can be described as a case of a possible "development trap". Until the early 1990s, its economy showed a notable convergence of per capita income towards the national average, above all due to structural changes which led to an increase in productivity. In recent decades this process has been interrupted by a number of adverse factors. The resilience of the regional economy to shocks is mainly based on externally controlled large firms and the spillover effects on local firms have so far been weak. The social diffusion of the benefits of globalization has remained limited, particularly in internal areas. Earthquakes and other natural disasters have made the situation worse.
The regional innovation system is therefore facing major challenges. Since 2008, the regional administration has promoted a number of 'Regional Innovation Poles' and most recently its 'Smart Specialization Strategy' has been reorganized into five domains, namely Automotive, ICT/Aerospace, Life Sciences and Pharmaceutics, Food, Fashion and Design. The process of entrepreneurial discovery implemented to build this strategy has led to the idea of making Abruzzo the "region of sustainable industry", enclosed in the so-called «Pescara Charter» (2016).
This paper aims to evaluate the experience of the regional innovation poles in Abruzzo, drawing on the data available at firm level on employment, productivity and innovative activities. Companies participating in regional innovation hubs will be matched with an appropriate control group on non-participating companies, in order to better understand the effectiveness of this policy framework in stimulating innovation and growth.
The policy implications of the paper may be particularly relevant to the ongoing attempt to use the National Recovery and Resilience Plan and the new cycle of European cohesion policies to stimulate the development of various forms of 'innovation intermediaries' linking universities and other research centres to SMEs.

João Almeida (p), Ana Daniel

P. Lelio Iapadre

Entrepreneurial Ecosystems (EE) have emerged as a fundamental concept to understand the complex system of interconnected actors and factors, within a particular location, that promote entrepreneurship, innovation (Mason and Brown 2014), and ultimately foster local socioeconomic development (Cho et al., 2022).
While, traditionally conceptualised as being rooted in a single location or environment (Stam and Spigel 2016; Mason and Brown 2014), recent research highlights that EEs may encompass wider and more permeable borders than originally conceived, not being isolated and limited to just one specific area, since “entrepreneurship, like nature, does not always recognize boundaries drawn on maps” (Muldoon et al. 2023). Besides, the advances in digital technologies have also pushed the discussion on digital EEs, where the geographical barriers are lowered and the interactions between stakeholders from different EEs are significantly different (Fischer et al. 2022; Muldoon et al. 2023; Autio et al. 2018). Thus, researchers have been calling for more holistic approaches that include multi-layered dynamics and relationships that go beyond geographical barriers (Fischer et al. 2022; Schäfer 2021).
However, there is no consensus in the current literature on the EE boundaries (Wurth et al., 2022) and there is a lack of empirical analysis to understand the network boundaries of EEs (Qian and Acs 2023), leading to an inadequate understanding of how entrepreneurial networks are distributed across different geographies (Fischer et al. 2022).
In this study, we discuss the need to establish multi-level cooperation across stakeholders from different EEs and at different spatial levels and how these relationships help mitigate local resource bottlenecks, related to finance, mentors, human capital and knowledge. In addition, we identify the main types of actors involved, the cooperation mechanisms and the role of local network brokers, such as the local government, incubators and entrepreneurs.
Our findings, expand the understanding that EE relationships with other ecosystems are important as the EE grows (Qian and Acs 2023), arguing that opening the boundaries of the EE was a critical success factor during the emergence and transition phases. This study also draws important implications for researchers and policymakers to consider EEs as multiscalar in nature and its boundaries open and dynamic, rather than delineating EEs according to fixed administrative boundaries.