The article
This empirical study adopts an institutional theory framework to analyze the interactions and complex dynamics of entrepreneurial ecosystems. While previous research investigated interactions between the different actors of the entrepreneurship ecosystem, little attention has been dedicated to understanding the impact of the interactions upon the ecosystem dynamics. Adopting a case study approach based on interviews with actors of the Lund University ecosystem, the paper shows that when depending on a specific set of formal and informal rules, the interactions can have differentiated impact on both integrative and disintegrative dynamics of the ecosystem. More specifically, a particular set of informal institutions, promotes the drivers of integration, while formal institutions in some situations can lead to the isolation of ecosystem actors and organizations, contributing to disintegration dynamics.
Reference Jasna Pocek (2022): Tendencies towards integration and disintegration of the entrepreneurial ecosystem: an institution-based view of the dynamics, European Planning Studies
The interviewee
Researcher Jasna Pocek Department of Business Administration, Lund University
The interview
Jasna thank you very much for taking the time to have a chat with me in a coffee break, how are you doing?
Thank you for inviting me, I’m doing very fine thank you.
I am having as usual Colombian black coffee which coffee are you having?
yes I’m having a black coffee with milk,
Nice could you please tell me more about your paper “Tendencies towards integration and disintegration of entrepreneurial ecosystems”?
thank you so this paper is about the environment of Lund University entrepreneurship and Innovation ecosystem and I applied institutional Theory so as to understand how different sets of formal and informal rules can impact the Dynamics of Entrepreneurship and Innovation ecosystem and I do that by building on the interviews that I conducted with different actors of ecosystem of Lund University.
Great and I find this topic amazing since Lund University is such a vibrant and indeed entrepreneurial ecosystem, could you please send it tell us your main findings?
yeah indeed that is also why it was interesting for me to look at it and so my main findings are that depending on the set of Institutions that interactions among the ecosystem actors employ the ecosystem Dynamics can be integrative and disintegrative, so what this means is that different institutions for example, culture, values, Norms or also laws and regulations these different institutions can impact the behavior of organizations and of people in different manner so I investigated how these formal and informal institutions, what do they do to this to Integrity to integrative and disintegrative dynamics of the ecosystem, and what I find out is that when actors of the ecosystem have a more collaborative dynamics, when they collaborate and when they behave based on a set of what we call informal rules institutions and these are based on openness, promoting the value of sharing tendency towards upward comparisons when they behave in accordance to these rules informal rules the dynamics of the ecosystem are a collaborative that is integrative, on the other hand some in some formal institutions such as the governmental programs for support for example if they are not implemented in care with log taking care of local realities these formal institutions can induce the disintegration of the ecosystem and this integration means that the actors of the ecosystem that there is a break in collaboration among the actors of the ecosystem.
How interesting actually and thinking of those findings which was will you say are the key policy implications?
So the key policy implications are that you know a Lund University ecosystem is as an environment that has a long tradition of support for entrepreneurship and Innovation that means that in this environment the informal rules such as the one of openness sharing and the old informal rules that support the culture, basically the culture and support for Innovation entrepreneurship has had a long time to be established so even in these environments with a long tradition of support for entrepreneurship and Innovation policy makers need to be careful when they induce formal rules for example programs for supports, not to mention some laws and regulations and they must never omit local realities and they should consult the actors of the local entrepreneurship ecosystem or share information with them in order to always foster the positive collaborative and integrative dynamics of the ecosystem.
How nice to know and was that surprising or would you did you have a motivation to do such a research what do you in a personal level what can you tell us about your paper?
Well yes I I wanted to share um what I saw and I when I was working at Lund University as a postdoctoral research I saw a great culture of support for entrepreneurship and Innovation and I knew that the history of this cultures of this you know development is quite long there um so this was I wanted to to I was interested to see how the institutional theory can explain what is happening there and but also the research in the theory always asks what are the institutions what is which types of Institutions matter for understanding of the functioning of the ecosystem so I tried also to fill in that research gap, and therefore that was my basically both my personal and theoretical motivation.
Nice I am really happy you did it, it’s a very interesting paper and I hope more come in the future wish you all the best thank you once again too for having this nice coffee with me and see you again soon.
Thank you for inviting me thank you for watching if you’re interested in more details about this academic publication you can find here the link below find us on Twitter Facebook and YouTube or listen to our podcast on Spotify see you next time bye.