Contextual and evolutionary perspectives on entrepreneurial ecosystems. Insights from Chris Freeman’s thinking

Jana Schmutzler (), Rhiannon Pugh and Alexandra Tsvetkova

Innovation and Development, 2022, vol. 12, issue 1, 13-21

Abstract: In recent years a concept gaining much traction amongst both economic and policy communities is that of Entrepreneurial Ecosystems (EE). We are interested in this concept because it has clear roots in innovation system thinking and can be argued to represent a contemporary iteration of ideas around systemic understandings and policy approaches to economic development, innovation, and entrepreneurship. In our work we have been exploring the links between earlier innovation systems and newer entrepreneurial ecosystem concepts. In this essay, we expand this line of thinking by interrogating the EE concept from the perspective of the work of Christopher Freeman, often called the father of innovation studies. It is our argument that by combining contemporary debates in EE with the more ‘classic’ literatures from the innovation systems cannon, we can gain a deeper understanding of the trinity of economic development, innovation, and entrepreneurship to be of benefit both to the research and policy communities. Specifically, in this paper we zoom in on two specific elements of Freeman’s thinking on innovation systems: context specificity and evolutionary dynamics and push EE thinking forward using these insights.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/2157930X.2021.1931742 (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:taf:riadxx:v:12:y:2022:i:1:p:13-21

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/riad20

DOI: 10.1080/2157930X.2021.1931742

Access Statistics for this article

Innovation and Development is currently edited by K J Joseph (Editor-in-chief), Cristina Chaminade, Gabriela Dutrénit, Judith Sutz, Tim Turpin and Susan Cozzens

More articles in Innovation and Development from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().