The emergence of entrepreneurial ecosystems based on enabling technologies: Evidence from synthetic biology

Petra A. Nylund, Xavier Ferràs-Hernández, Luis Pareras and Alexander Brem

Journal of Business Research, 2022, vol. 149, issue C, 728-735

Abstract: Certain technologies have the potential to spawn an entrepreneurial ecosystem, but this potential is not always realized. Some of these technologies that could enable prosperous and sustainable ecosystems struggle at the threshold of ecosystem emergence. In this paper, we use an in-depth case study of an emergent entrepreneurial ecosystem based on an enabling technology—synthetic biology—to identify the structural, societal, and ethical barriers to ecosystem growth. The structural barriers mainly relate to the lack of an ecosystem framework to manage intellectual property in complex interactions. The societal barriers concern the clock speed conflict between parts of the quintuple helix entrepreneurial ecosystem, and the ethical barriers arise from the widespread impact of enabling technologies in combination with the diffusion of ethical responsibility throughout the ecosystem. We also discuss both the theoretical and managerial implications of these barriers.

Keywords: Entrepreneurial ecosystems; Ecosystem emergence; Complex adaptive systems; Enabling technologies; Synthetic biology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L26 M13 O32 O34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296322005100
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:149:y:2022:i:c:p:728-735

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2022.05.071

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Research is currently edited by A. G. Woodside

More articles in Journal of Business Research from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().