Orchestration in Mature Entrepreneurial Ecosystems Towards a Circular Economy: A Dynamic Capabilities Approach

Wisdom Kanda, Magnus Klofsten, Dzamila Bienkowska, David B. Audretsch and Martin Geissdoerfer

Business Strategy and the Environment, 2025, vol. 34, issue 4, 4747-4765

Abstract: The novelty of this article lies in its focus on how mature ecosystems align their members around a new value proposition, specifically supporting circular economy entrepreneurship. We use dynamic capabilities theory to analyse the coordination and collaboration challenges in entrepreneurial ecosystems that seek to support entrepreneurship based on circular economy strategies. Drawing on interviews with 34 ecosystem actors and 70 circular new ventures, as well as three focus group discussions, we identify key challenges that hinder the ecosystem's alignment: (i) a lack of shared understanding of the circular economy concept, (ii) diverse business strategies for circular value creation, (iii) insufficient support tools for circular new ventures and (iv) limited interactions between specialists and generalists. Overcoming these challenges requires ecosystem orchestrators with a holistic perspective, strong legitimacy and the ability to mobilize ecosystem‐level resources. These orchestrators must foster a shared vision (sensing), promote investment in circular expertise (seizing) and adapt the ecosystem to the evolving needs of circular new ventures (reconfiguring). Using the circular economy context, we contribute to ecosystem theory by highlighting the importance of materiality, the emergence of geographically unbound entrepreneurial ecosystems and the role of non‐market exchanges. For practitioners, this article offers actionable insights for reconfiguring mature entrepreneurial ecosystems for new value propositions such as providing support for circular economy entrepreneurs.

Date: 2025
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