Entrepreneurial ecosystems: Future research trends

Entrepreneurial ecosystems are gaining ascendancy as one of the most popular topics discussed in the international business literature. This is due to the way they incorporate cultural, economic, social, and political considerations in an evolutionary view of how entities interact in society. Due to an increased emphasis on digitalization and the knowledge economy, it helps to take an ecosystem view when discussing and analyzing entrepreneurship. The aim of this article is to discuss future research trajectories in research, practice, and policy on entrepreneurial ecosystems. Thereby contributing an anthropocosmic view to how entrepreneurship exists and its role in contributing to a more open and inclusive global economy. Specific research and managerial tracks are stated that highlight the importance of investing in an entrepreneurial ecosystem mindset where everything is connected.     

How is Business Adapting to Climate Change Impacts Appropriately? Insight from the Commercial Port Sector

Adaptation to climate change impacts is a key research topic in business ethics that poses substantial implications on the good lives of human beings. The commercial port sector is a highly relevant study focus with its pivotal roles in supply chains and international trade. Hence, it is important to investigate whether the port planning system and practice is appropriate in tackling climate change impacts. But beforehand, we must thoroughly understand the attitude and behaviors of port planners and operators on ports’ climate adaptation planning. Through a survey towards 21 ports (seaports and dry ports) in Canada, the paper investigates the attitude and behaviors of port planners and operators on ports’ climate adaptation planning. Towards the end, we propose a new approach so as to enable port stakeholders to carry out climate adaptation planning effectively. The paper offers important insight to researchers to investigate the ways in developing effective climate adaptation plans and practice for ports and other business sectors.     

Interdependence between consumption in the North and sustainable communities in the South

The issues we want to address and discuss in this article are related to the interdependence between consumption in households in high‐income countries and life in the low‐income countries, seen in a sustainable perspective. In the consumer society the underlying premise is that ever‐escalating consumption is accepted, even desirable. During the past decade, an increasing critique of consumer lifestyle has come from environmentalists, who argue that the resource use to maintain a consumer lifestyle is putting too hard a burden on the ecosystems. We give examples of the abundant evidence of interdependence between North and South at global levels, such as climate change and appropriation of ecosystem capacities, and related to specific types of consumption such as clothing, flowers, food and cosmetics. We argue that the loss of feedback to individual households in the North is a serious barrier for change towards more sustainable consumption habits, and raise a question about how impacts of production and consumption can be communicated to consumers. On the basis of previous and ongoing research, we highlight some impacts of positive and negative labelling schemes as well as extended environmental information.     

Morality, Ethics, and Values Outside and Inside Organizations: An Example of the Discourse on Climate Change

The public debate on climate change is filled with moral claims. However, scientific knowledge about the role that morality, ethics, and values play in this issue is still scarce. Starting from this research gap, we focus on corporations as central decision makers in modern society and analyze how they respond to societal demands to take responsibility for climate change. While relevant literature on business ethics and climate change either places a high premium on morality or presents a strong skeptical bias, our sociological model depicts morality as an indeterminate force: it can lead to both workable solutions or merely reinforce the status quo, depending on what different corporations make of it. We describe, on the one side, the diffusion of moral values in the media discourse on climate change and, on the other side, the specific responses of corporations. While the media discourse generates a pressure on corporations to act responsibly, their moral claims do not provide clear advice for action. As a result, morality becomes available to organizations as a medium that can be re-specified according to their internal dynamics. Corporations transform moral values into something compatible with their own structures through a variety of different responses: introducing formal ethical structures (e.g., codes of conduct), initiating value-oriented projects, or developing informal moral norms, and so on. In some occurrences, morality becomes a mere façade, while in others it serves as a decision-making criterion and deeply influences core activities in firms.     

Family meals and disparities in global ecosystem dependency. Three examples: Ghana,Russia and Sweden

This article highlights globalization in terms of dependency on local and global ecosystems when it comes to family diets. In an exploratory case study, one typical meal in three household settings in different parts of the world: Ghana, Russia and Sweden, is examined. Food paths are traced to compare the scale of ecosystem dependency. The result shows that ecosystem dependency varies greatly with implications for environmental impact. The Swedish household, as opposed to the Ghanaian and the Russian, is not dependent on local ecosystems for food provision, but increasingly on global systems. Opportunities and constraints for lowering environmental impacts related to diets in different economies are discussed. It is concluded that it is of great importance to create awareness in high‐income countries of the dependency on the global ecosystem and the resulting environmental impacts. It is in these countries that opportunities are available for change towards more sustainable diets. It is suggested that further research need to explore in greater depth how ecosystem dependency differs and how that translates into broad spectra of environmental impacts, considering other dimensions of sustainable development as well.     

Digital sport entrepreneurial ecosystems

The entrepreneurial ecosystems literature has increasingly explored network relationships between different stakeholders, as well as the role of context. This article addresses the challenge of including a sport context in the entrepreneurial ecosystem literature thereby contributing to the sport entrepreneurship literature by bringing insights from entrepreneurship ecosystem research. In‐depth interviews of football stakeholders in the sport entrepreneurship ecosystem are conducted in terms of understanding the emergence of digital sport start‐ups. The issues raised help explore the changing nature of digital entrepreneurial ecosystems to take into account new sport technological advances. Mixed embeddedness theory is used as the conceptual foundation to understand sport digital entrepreneurial ecosystems. Key management practices are identified in terms of sport start‐ups participating in entrepreneurial ecosystems. The article concludes by making suggestions for future research.     

Embedded Relationships: Implications for Networks,Innovation, and Ecosystems

In today’s dynamic market environment, no single actor has enough knowledge and sufficient human resources to innovate on a globally competitive level. This trend has accelerated the need for a deeper understanding of relationship management in alliances, virtual corporations, and networks to maximize capacity for innovation. We refer to these structures as service ecosystems and propose a framework for investigating how innovation occurs in service ecosystems. Specifically, we review the conceptualization of relationship as it has evolved from the relationship marketing, service and business-to-business marketing, and service-dominant logic literature. Then, we draw on centrality and embeddedness to explicate how actors in these service ecosystems draw on resources from their extended networks for innovation. We propose an embedded relationships framework for investigating innovation as a dynamic and continuous ecosystem of information seeking and information processing. Future research directions are discussed.     

Knowledge and the Climate Change Issue: An Exploratory Study of Cluster and Extra-Cluster Effects

Climate change, while potentially impacting many industries, appears to have considerable significance to the wine industry. Yet little is known about how firms acquire knowledge and gain an understanding of climate change and its impacts. This study, exploratory in nature and studying firms from the wine-producing region of Tasmania, is one of the first in the management literature to use cluster theory to examine the climate change issue. Firms are predicted to exchange knowledge about climate change more readily with other firms internal to the sub-cluster than with those external to the sub-cluster. The hypothesis does not find support. The study also proposes that the different characteristics of knowledge can either increase or decrease their flows in and around clusters. Specifically, “public” knowledge about climate change is predicted to flow more freely than “private” knowledge about climate change. The hypothesis does not find support. Finally, firms are expected to acquire knowledge about climate change from sources other than cluster-entrenched firms, and in particular peak national industry bodies. The hypothesis finds partial support. A discussion of the findings is presented along with future research directions.     

How entrepreneurship ecosystem influences the development of frugal innovation and informal entrepreneurship

This article critically analyses how the entrepreneurial ecosystem and institutional environment influences the development of frugal innovation and informal entrepreneurship. There is a dearth of empirical research on African entrepreneurship ecosystems and complementors that produce innovations in the informal sector. We address this gap, by examining why and how informal businesses operate and evolve. Based on a qualitative approach, interviewing 20 business owners in Nigeria, two focus groups meeting with 5 and 7 business associations leaders, respectively, we examine the role of institutional environments, how entrepreneurs operate and overcome the barriers to entrepreneurship. The results reveal a model of determinants of frugal innovation and informal entrepreneurship ecosystem comprising formal/informal rules, access to market, and family as important elements that act as a means to effective knowledge flows, networking, capital, and resources sharing.     

To What Extent is Business Responding to Climate Change? Evidence from a Global Wine Producer

Most studies on climate change response have examined reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Yet these studies do not take into account ecosystem services constraints and biophysical disruptions wrought by climate change that may require broader types of response. By studying a firm in the wine industry and using a research approach not constrained by structured methodologies or biased toward GHG emissions, the findings suggest that both “inside out” and “outside in” actions are taken in response to climate change. While attempts are made by the firm to curtail and reverse climate change through management of carbon emissions, evidence suggests a clear pattern of actions designed to adjust to the adverse consequences of climate change as well. The results both confirm and extend previous findings and suggest that the level and breadth of response to climate change is shaped by situated attention, structural controls, and industry type.     

Environmental and social performance

If an organization cares for nature, this paper contends, it will act so as not to harm the ecosystems it affects, or when it cannot so act at the moment it will commit itself to such action over time. For an organization's commitment to ecologically beneficent performance to be credible, one requires an action plan with specified targets determining the best ecologically beneficent pollution abatement and ecosystem improvement approaches in a situation. To this end the 4 Direct Environmental Performance Measures (EPMs) are generally used: L, pollutant loads; C: pollutant concentrations; I, ecosystem impacts; and R, ecosystem restoration. These direct EPMS are preferred to the indirect social performance indices customary in business ethics discourse, such as O: positioning organizations along the social performance spectrum from reactive to proactive; or E: economic indicators; and T: technology development; for environmental performance improvement is what is at issue. This one ground rule of environmental performance ethic; a second is that reducing harmful impacts or restoring an ecosystem are to be preferred over pollutant load/concentration reduction. The scientific, technical form of Direct EPMs is important, for it reinforces economic and technological development and yields performance-related environmental knowledge, in contrast to subjective perception and social debate. It offers management a model of ecologically beneficent performance that is microscopic in detail and regional in scope. It further suggests good environmental management involves linking ecosystem improvement with economic/technological benefits. An important aspect of this model of good environmental performance is to integrate economic, technical and social concerns with environmental ethics. It shows that economics and ecology should be mutually reinforcing, just as sustainable development suggests.Vincent di Norcia is a full professor in philosophy at the University of Sudbury. He is the director of the Environmental Values and Technological Innovation research project on environmental management (funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada), and is environmental adviser to Citland Canada, a mining technology company.     

Resource integration through digitalisation: a service ecosystem perspective

ABSTRACT

As digitalisation increasingly encompasses entire service ecosystems, it modifies resource integration patterns that connect ecosystem actors through strong and weak ties. To clarify how technological development contributes to this change, and how resource integration transforms the service ecosystem, this qualitative case study explores the digitalisation strategy of a market-leading systems integrator in the maritime industry. Based on 40 depth interviews with managers, the findings show how technology increasingly serves as a key operant resource in the transformation of resource integration patterns. The study contributes to ecosystem dynamics research by identifying major differences between the pre-digitalised and digitalised states of a service ecosystem, and demonstrates the dual role of technology in both increasing pattern complexity and facilitating coordination of that complexity.     

From knowledge to business ecosystems: emergence of an entrepreneurial activity during knowledge replication

Small Business Economics - Our article emphasizes the relationship between knowledge and business ecosystems. Transformation of a knowledge ecosystem can lead to the emergence of a technological...     

?konomische Grundfragen der Klimaanpassung

The option of climate adaptation is becoming more and more important in climate change policy. A large number of countries has already initiated a process of adaptation by drafting strategies or catalogues of measures. Hence there is an urgent need to support this process at the scientific level. The discipline of economics has a key role to play in this context. Against this background, this paper scrutinises the fundamental economic questions challenging the adaptation policy which is broadly supported. It outlines how economics may contribute to a successful adaptation process concerning the objectives of adaptation policies, appropriate instruments, the role of both spontaneous and planned adaptation as well as possible assessment tools for evaluation of adaptation policies.     

The Drivers of Climate Change Innovations: Evidence from the Australian Wine Industry

This study examined the drivers of climate change innovations and the effects of these innovations on firm outcomes in a sample of 203 firms in the South Australian wine cluster. The results of structural equation modeling analysis suggest that absorptive capacity has a direct effect on climate change innovations, and stimulates knowledge exchanges (KEs) between firms in the cluster. KEs between firms in the cluster in turn directly affect the climate change innovations. The findings suggest a perhaps counterintuitive interrelationship between firm- and cluster-level impacts, in which KEs between firms in the cluster play a partial mediating role in the innovation process. The study further finds that climate change innovations are related to firm performance (FP) and reductions in greenhouse gases (GHGs): mitigative innovations lead to greater GHG reductions while adaptive innovations impact on FP. Contributions of the findings are discussed, as are future research directions.     

Managerial Commitment to Sustainable Supply Chain Management Projects

Most companies are under pressure to improve the environmental sustainability of their supply chains. However, there is considerable variance in companies' ability to successfully deploy environmental management projects. One important factor, according to articles in the academic and business press, is the ability of champions of sustainable supply chain management (SCM) projects within organizations to gain the commitment of colleagues (e.g., other managers from a variety of functions) to help these projects succeed. Therefore, this paper examines variables that affect a project champion's ability to gain this commitment from colleagues. In particular, building on existing research, this research employs a video‐based experimental design to examine the effect of the influence approach that the project champion employs, the values of the person the champion is trying to influence, and the organizational climate. The results suggest that organizational climate and certain individual values directly affect commitment. There are also interactions between values and influence tactics. The research adds to the field's growing knowledge on the antecedents of sustainable SCM within companies while providing valuable guidance for environmental champions and for top managers.     

Employment growth from the Small Business Innovation Research program

This paper investigates employment growth in small firms funded by the U.S. Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. Using data collected by the National Research Council for each of five federal agencies, our analysis shows that on average over two-fifths of all projects retained zero employees after completion and over one-third retained only one or two employees. Thus, on average, the direct impact of SBIR funded projects on employment is small, especially when compared to the mean number of employees in the firms. However, there are substantial cross-project differences in the number of retained employees that are explained by differences in the firms and their SBIR projects. We find across funding agencies that projects with intellectual property??patents, copyrights, trademarks, or publications??retained more employees after completion of the project. Also, we find that the public funding of research by the SBIR program is more likely to stimulate employment when the government created a market for the products, processes, or services developed by the research projects.     

Fostering International Technology Transfer Through Climate Technology Networks Between European and Latin American Universities

Based on experiences gained in the frame of a networking scheme that involves universities from Latin America and Europe, this article addresses international technology transfer (ITT) of climate technology through networks bridging current knowledge and technology gaps between academia, businesses, authorities, and civil society. It is argued that higher education institutions (HEIs) can make a substantial contribution to a sustainable socioeconomic development in Latin America (LA) and at the same time reduce its social vulnerability to climate change impacts. Most research and development in LA is carried out in HEIs, not in industry. Consequently, research agendas are uncoupled from business needs, and university research remains largely uncommercialized. Further, spillover effects, which may benefit businesses in the home country, remain limited. This article raises some opportunities for Latin American HEIs to drive the improvement of local adaptive capacity through ITT and creation of the corresponding capacities, especially in terms of research and development, consultancy, and qualification of human capital in the field of climate technologies. It is argued that climate change poses many challenges to all sectors of society, and the improved international transfer of knowledge and climate technology may result in reducing social and economic vulnerability to future climate impacts in LA. Finally, some recommendations are given that may support current efforts to reduce the overall vulnerability to climate impacts through fostering the social and economic development in Latin America by means of ITT.     

Innovation performance: The effect of knowledge-based dynamic capabilities in cross-country innovation ecosystems

This study operationalizes the knowledge-based dynamic capabilities (KBDC) that act as drivers of innovation performance in innovation ecosystems, across different market economies. Innovation ecosystems facilitate the flow of resources to transform ideas into reality. In turn, KBDC provide a means to create and share expertise, which contributes to the diversification of the economy, and allow businesses to reach beyond their own boundaries to create value for customers in new ways. Employing partial least squares path analysis, four constructs, namely knowledge creation, knowledge diffusion, knowledge absorption and knowledge impact, are comparatively analyzed. Across all four constructs, knowledge creation is the biggest driver of innovation performance, and the strongest predictor of innovation performance in developed and developing market economies. Knowledge absorption is the strongest predictor of innovation performance in transition economies. A KBDC-centered innovation ecosystem framework is proposed to highlight the innovation performance and competitive advantage inherent in each knowledge-related capability.     

The dark side of the sharing economy: Balancing value co-creation and value co-destruction

The sharing economy disrupts the marketplace and brings both benefits and disadvantages into service ecosystems. We discuss principles of the S-D logic and transformative service research and explore the processes of value co-creation and co-destruction of well-being within the ecosystem of the accommodation sharing economy. Following a brief period of euphoria, the dark side of the sharing economy emerges, defined as the socially, environmentally, or economically undesirable effects introduced by the sharing economy. Airbnb introduced new realities for visitors, neighborhoods, the accommodation industry, and city councils, whereby some stakeholders are frequently found to maximize their own value at the expense of others. Value co-destruction prevails often due to uncontrolled and rapid expansion. We seek to promote a more balanced process, and the optimization of value co-creation, while seeking to prevent value co-destruction. Using a literature review, netnography, and a case study, we investigate co-creation and co-destruction, as expressed by different stakeholders, and focus on the socio-psychological implications in the use of sharing platforms that affect the well-being of individuals and community. A conceptual framework is proposed to manage future research addressing well-being, value co-creation and co-destruction in complex ecosystem service networks.