Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in Cities and Regions: Emergence, Evolution, and Future

The concept of 'entrepreneurial ecosystems' has emerged as a means for theorizing and making policy-decisions concerning entrepreneurship and economic development within and across cities and regions. Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in Cities and Regions assembles original contributions from scholars across the world to provide an in-depth analysis of a concept that has the capability to capture a dynamic global economy with entrepreneurial innovation at the crux of its future development. It addresses wider issues concerning the evolution of new forms of industrial organisation. The book develops an agenda and understanding that aims to build upon the early explosion of interest within academic, policy, and practice circles by providing new and important insights that contribute to knowledge, direct future investigations, and to increase the effectiveness of research-based policy and practice.

Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in Cities and Regions builds a framework for establishing a robust and sustainable concept that can help propel an understanding of how cities and regions around the world can use entrepreneurship and innovation as a catalyst for their future economic, social, and environmental development. The volume highlights the need to account for urban and regional contextual factors when determining the strength or otherwise of entrepreneurial ecosystems, and illustrates that these factors can lead to the development of entrepreneurial activity of quite a different nature across cities and regions.

Robert Huggins is Professor of Economic Geography and Director of the Cities Research Centre at the School of Geography and Planning, Cardiff University, as well as the Director of Cardiff University's Cities Research Centre. He is also a Visiting Fellow at the University of Oxford's Kellogg College. His research interests and expertise concern urban and regional economic development, in particular the study of behavior, culture, competitiveness, knowledge flows, entrepreneurship, innovation, clusters, and inter-organizational networks.

Fumi Kitagawa is Chair in Regional Economic Development at Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham. Kitagawa has a track record of local, national, and international research projects and publication on university entrepreneurship and regional development. Her research has centred on how public science generates impact on economy and society; in particular, the role of higher education institutions in the regional development and entrepreneurial ecosystems.

Daniel Prokop is Senior Lecturer in Economic Geography at the School of Geography and Planning, Cardiff University. His research interests are in regional economic development, specifically concerned with entrepreneurship, innovation, and networks, and a cross-section of these fields represented in academic entrepreneurship, firm survival, and spatial configurations of ecosystem actors. He has published in peer-reviewed journals including International Small Business Journal, Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, Regional Studies, and Urban Studies.

Christina Theodoraki is Associate Professor in Entrepreneurship and Strategy at TBS Business School. She defended her Ph.D. degree in management from the University of Montpellier, France, in 2017, which received two Best Dissertation in Management and Entrepreneurship Awards. She is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Development Strategies at the University of Indiana and Business Development Manager at the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Research Network. She is Editor of Small Business Economics and Associate editor of the Journal of Small Business Management and Management & Prospectives (Gestion 2000). She is elected PDW chair of the ENT division the Academy of Management.

Piers Thompson is Professor of Local and Regional Economic Development and Deputy Unit of Assessment Coordinator at Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University. His research interests include behavioral economics, choice and welfare, and economic competitiveness, with a focus on spatial economics and understanding geographic differences in development, culture, entrepreneurship, network behavior, and economic growth. He is a review board member of the International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior and Research and has published over fifty peer-reviewed journal articles including papers in Economic Geography, Journal of Economic Geography, Regional Studies, and Environment and Planning A.