Entrepreneurial ecosystem typologies for entrepreneurial dynamism: a configurational theorizing

A nation’s entrepreneurial dynamism (ED) influences economic progress, national development, and overall societal well-being through its three key dimensions: enterprise birth, growth, and death. Recent developments in the entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) literature recognize the interconnected and interdependent nature of various components of the EE. The interconnectedness among elements of the EE suggests the possibility of causal complexity characterized by conjunctural causations, causal asymmetry, and the equifinality of outcomes. Given the dynamic interconnectedness of EE elements and the associated casual complexity, we employ configurational theorizing to explore the configurations of EE elements leading to high levels of ED. Using a panel dataset of 23 countries from 2010 to 2019, we form three typologies for a high enterprise birth rate and four for a high enterprise growth rate. Our findings indicate that some EE elements play a primary role, while others are supportive in driving high enterprise birth and growth rates. Results also suggest that some countries exhibit a temporal configuration change, leading to a high enterprise birth rate. The configurational transition path analysis reveals the importance of including or excluding certain EE elements facilitating countries’ transition across high birth, high growth, and high death configurations. We also obtain the configurations of ‘productive entrepreneurship’ and ‘non-productive entrepreneurship’.