The role of finance in the literature of entrepreneurial ecosystems

Financial access is considered a crucial element of entrepreneurship. Much of the literature focuses on how individual actors demand or supply finance, but rarely within the context of systemic entrepreneurship. The current entrepreneurial finance literature is fragmented and rooted in various traditions. However, the entrepreneur’s perceived role in aggregated wealth creation is currently being strengthened, most recently by the emerging entrepreneurial ecosystem perspective. This calls for exploring the role of finance in systemic entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial ecosystems. By conducting a systematic literature review of financial determinants, sources and effects, the study synthesizes debates across the different research fields, i.e. finance, entrepreneurship and regional development. As the entrepreneurial ecosystem concept is considered a pre-paradigmatic approach, the paper argues that the role of finance depends on how we regard and define ecosystems. The state of knowledge is also underdeveloped due to the obstacles of acquiring longitudinal data. Such issues keep us from achieving a better evolutionary and processual understanding of the financial dynamics in ecosystems and, therefore, presents a promising avenue for future research.