Browsing by Subject "http://www.yso.fi/onto/yso/p25274"

Unprecedented environmental challenges require new entrepreneurs who develop disruptive ideas, products and services. These entrepreneurs are becoming increasingly dependent on their surrounding context and the other actors situated within this context. Against this background, this research focused on the emergence of bioeconomy entrepreneurial ecosystems in two Finnish regions: Lahti and Tampere, and investigated regional differences in entrepreneurial ecosystem emergence, evolution and legitimacy. This research was based on an iterative process of theory elaboration. Spigel’s relational perspective to entrepreneurial ecosystem attributes was used as the main guiding perspective. An integrative literature review conceptualized and synthesized literature around the topic. A comparative case study design was applied, and case regions were selected based on theoretical relevance. The primary data consisted of 21 interviews which were analyzed using thematic analyses. The results showed contrasting development paths for ecosystem emergence: the Lahti ecosystem was emerging from established and maintained arrangements, whereas the Tampere ecosystem was emerging from change processes; the change seemed to be easiest for those areas within cities that do not suffer from path-dependent arrangements. The findings challenge standard evolutionary models and bottom-up models of entrepreneurial ecosystems. When successful, changing ecosystems could potentially reduce the timespan for ecosystem development. Moreover, different ecosystems had different implications for legitimacy. In conclusion, the public sector and research institutions should play a more prominent role in the development of entrepreneurial ecosystems in the bioeconomy and work towards a more inclusive collaborative process. Nonetheless, the dichotomy between change and path dependence in entrepreneurial ecosystems was based on preliminary categorizations that can be elaborated in further study and broader empirical data.