Developing sustainable entrepreneurial finance ecosystems in an emerging market context: the role of keystone actors in managing competing institutional logics

Emerging sustainable enterprises thrive when they have access to a conducive environment. While sustainable entrepreneurial finance ecosystems (SEFE) have received growing interest, a lack of understanding remains concerning how they operate in emerging market economies, and how the varied logics of different actors drive or inhibit the necessary development. To address this research gap, we draw on in-depth qualitative research with key ecosystem actors in Brazil. We apply a pattern-matching approach to thematically examine how different actors converge under the operational lens of their different sustainability and commercial institutional logics. The findings reveal that Brazil’s nascent SEFE requires significant ongoing support. Drawing from systems ecology, we develop an institutional logic (IL) theory by introducing the concept of “keystone actors” to account for the intermediary boundary-spanning practices, which allow us to combine finance, business and policy actors’ sustainability and commercial market logics necessary to provide effective support mechanisms to unlock sustainable entrepreneurship. We conclude that financing sustainable entrepreneurship in emerging economies necessitates multi-level support in the form of keystone actors holding the ecosystem together while cultivating capabilities to harmonize logics. This process can ensure that sustainable entrepreneurship moves from “buzzword status” to a valid, systemic concept for SEFE in emerging market contexts.