Oasis in the desert or icing on the cake? The impact of entrepreneurship accelerators across ecosystems
Fei Qin ()
Additional contact information
Fei Qin: University of Bath
Journal of International Business Studies, 2025, vol. 56, issue 5, No 8, 659-676
Abstract:
Abstract The effectiveness of accelerators in fostering new venture development has traditionally been attributed to variations in their internal operations and design, with limited consideration of contextual factors. This study broadens the understanding of accelerators by situating their roles in relation to entrepreneurial ecosystems and introducing a multi-level framework on how macro-level institutions and meso-level accelerator programs interact to shape venture growth. By linking organizational theories on accelerators with institutional economics, this research juxtaposes and tests two perspectives: institutional voids and institutional support. On the one hand, accelerators address institutional voids by acting as intermediaries in entrepreneurial resource markets through knowledge and resource curation, network brokerage, and signaling. On the other hand, the effectiveness of these intermediation roles is constrained by the quality of institutions. Contrary to the prevailing belief that accelerators deliver greater value in underdeveloped institutional environments with inefficient entrepreneurial resource markets, the findings reveal that ventures in such contexts derive less growth benefit from accelerators. This study contributes to the growing body of comparative and international accelerator research and offers broader implications for meso-level intervention programs, suggesting these programs require working in concert with robust ecosystems rather than operating in isolation in order to achieve their intended objectives.
Keywords: Impact-oriented business accelerators; Entrepreneurial ecosystem intermediaries; Market-supporting institutions; Institutional voids; New venture growth; Cross-level mechanisms; Contextualization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41267-025-00780-4 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
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:pal:jintbs:v:56:y:2025:i:5:d:10.1057_s41267-025-00780-4
Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... nt/journal/41267/PS2
DOI: 10.1057/s41267-025-00780-4
Access Statistics for this article
Journal of International Business Studies is currently edited by John Cantwell
More articles in Journal of International Business Studies from Palgrave Macmillan, Academy of International Business
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().