Regional entrepreneurial mentoring networks as transformative innovation policy: insights from a semi-peripheral high tech hub

Darius Ornston and Isabelle Watkinson

Chapter 15 in Research Handbook on Regions and Transformative Innovation Policy, 2026, pp 244-258 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter examines how regional entrepreneurial mentoring networks (REMNs) can foster and shape entrepreneurial ecosystems. Focusing on Waterloo, Canada, a low-density outlier in high-technology markets, we explore how the region developed a widely distributed REMN. Second, we illustrate how mentoring enabled Waterloo-based entrepreneurs to circumvent both geographical constraints and suboptimal national institutions by legitimising high-technology entrepreneurship and diffusing advice about how to cope with these disadvantages. While successful in supporting entry into a diverse range of business-to-business niches, this distinctive pattern of civic capital was poorly positioned to disrupt national barriers to high-technology entrepreneurship. Indeed, the emphasis on niching risks reified those constraints. In addition to reducing the demand for reform, niching can make it harder to build coalitions and concentrate resources. In the long run, these relatively weak ties are also unlikely to generate the soft or hard infrastructure necessary to achieve social and environmental sustainability.

Keywords: Canada; Civic capital; Entrepreneurial ecosystems; Mentoring; Innovation; Waterloo (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035309924
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781035309931.00025 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 403 Forbidden

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:elg:eechap:22217_15

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jack Sweeney ().