Entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) research requires a better understanding of its various configurations and processes at its whole scale to open its black box and create new theoretical opportunities. We designed exploratory research to longitudinally observe network behaviors between EE ‘species’ in four territories (3 in Africa, 1 in France) from 2017 to 2021 by observing tie formation between 685 actors and 155,470 observations. We found convincing evidence that despite the heterogeneity of our cases, the configuration attributes of those EEs are correlated with the same spillovers in terms of entrepreneurial activity, opening to theoretical generalizations. We also found evidence of tie persistence and an interesting discontinuity factor in EE when birth stage and mature stage supportive actors are insufficiently connected to practical support actors. This underlines the importance of the accessibility of the various ‘entrepreneurial nurturing components’ to entrepreneurs for them to fulfill their purpose. Those findings provide interesting insights both at a theoretical and practical level in terms of network strategies to operate within EEs.

Grégory Guéneau, Didier Chabaud, Marie-Christine Chalus Sauvannet

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2023.122416