The governance of entrepreneurial ecosystems

The “entrepreneurial ecosystem” metaphor is capturing attention in academia, industry, and government. The entrepreneurial ecosystem approach is used in corporate, national, or local contexts, and has grown in prominence given the vital need to transform economies around the creation of innovative ideas, products, services, and technologies. Entrepreneurial ecosystems involve a network, a system, of interactions of individuals and organizations, like financial intermediaries, universities and research institutions, suppliers and customers, multinational companies, or the government. The entrepreneurial ecosystem literature has thus mainly focused on identifying the relevant stakeholders like entrepreneurial firms and entrepreneurs and how they interact with other stakeholders within a more or less defined system. Despite the popularity of the entrepreneurial ecosystem approach, the literature has almost overlooked and largely ignored the governance of entrepreneurial ecosystems. This special Issue of Small Business Economics critically examines issues concerning the governance of entrepreneurial ecosystems.