Regional entrepreneurial ecosystems: how family firm embeddedness triggers ecosystem development

Bernhard Fabian Bichler; Andreas Kallmuenzer; Mike Peters; Tanja Petry; Thomas Clauss

doi:10.1007/s11846-020-00434-9

journal article Open Access Jan 18, 2021

Regional entrepreneurial ecosystems: how family firm embeddedness triggers ecosystem development

Bernhard Fabian Bichler

Review of Managerial Science Vol. 16 No. 1 pp. 15-44 · Springer Science and Business Media LLC

View at Publisher Save 10.1007/s11846-020-00434-9

Abstract

AbstractRegional business development is driven by family firms, which are generally deeply embedded in their region, particularly in rural areas. This study explores how family entrepreneurs’ embeddedness drives an entrepreneurial ecosystem as a regional context for innovation. For this purpose, the study brings together entrepreneurship research on embeddedness and on ecosystems, and develops the entrepreneurial ecosystem embeddedness framework to better understand the connection of entrepreneurs to their local environment along three dimensions. Analyzing qualitative interviews from the hospitality context with a pattern matching approach, we highlight the role of family entrepreneurs’ (1) horizontal embeddedness in the economic and socio-political environment, their (2) vertical embeddedness in industry regimes, in particular the family, and their (3) spatial embeddedness in the region for value creation. Thereby we contribute to a differentiated understanding of how embeddedness as a social fabric relates to entrepreneurial ecosystems. The propositions of this study recommend raising awareness for managing entrepreneurs’ embeddedness along these three dimensions since unilateral engagement and a lack of coordinated embeddedness can restrict value creation.

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References

Details

Published: Jan 18, 2021
Vol/Issue: 16(1)
Pages: 15-44
License: View

Authors

B

Bernhard Fabian Bichler

Witten Institute for Family Business Witten/Herdecke University Witten Germany

Funding

University of Innsbruck and Medical University of Innsbruck

Cite This Article

Bernhard Fabian Bichler, Andreas Kallmuenzer, Mike Peters, et al. (2021). Regional entrepreneurial ecosystems: how family firm embeddedness triggers ecosystem development. Review of Managerial Science, 16(1), 15-44. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11846-020-00434-9

Regional entrepreneurial ecosystems: how family firm embeddedness triggers ecosystem development

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