Rethinking entrepreneurial ecosystems: Evaluating the performance impact of top-down design

Although entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) continue to attract significant global attention from both scholars and practitioners, important questions remain unanswered. In particular, there is ongoing debate about the actual and potential impact of EEs on firm performance. This gap in the literature motivates a central research question: to what extent can EEs enhance firm performance? A specific type of top-down EEs, the Digital Innovations Hubs (DIHs) launched by the European Commission, is considered and tested in Italy by leveraging data retrieved by the Italian Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy about 12779 Italian innovative start-ups and carrying out stochastic frontier analyses. With regard to start-up performance, the statistical analysis highlights the importance of carefully selecting variables that influence the outcomes of innovative start-ups. As for Digital Innovation Hubs (DIHs), the results suggest that their impact is not uniform, nor do they appear to generate nested geographic effects. Consequently, it remains unclear whether DIHs are capable of effectively supporting or stimulating innovation processes that enhance firm performance. The final section of the paper offers reflections and considerations on the potential risks and benefits associated with top-down entrepreneurial ecosystems.