( Moore, 1993 ; Zacharakis et al, 2003 ; Isenberg, 2010 AU40: The in-text citation "Isenberg, 2010" is not in the reference list. Please correct the citation, add the reference to the list, or delete the citation. ; Napier and Hansen, 2011 ; Malecki, 2011 ; Kantis and Federico, 2012 AU41: The in-text citation "Kantis and Federico, 2012" is not in the reference list. Please correct the citation, add the reference to the list, or delete the citation. ; Feld, 2012 ; Rosted, 2012 ): refers to the social and economic environment affecting the local/regional entrepreneurship. It alludes to “a set of interconnected entrepreneurial actors (both potential and existing), entrepreneurial organizations (e.g. firms, venture capitalists, business angels, banks), institutions (universities, public sector agencies, financial bodies) and entrepreneurial processes (e.g. the business birth rate, numbers of high growth firms, levels of “blockbuster entrepreneurship”, number of serial entrepreneurs, degree of sell-out mentality within firms and levels of entrepreneurial ambition) which formally and informally coalesce to connect, mediate and govern the performance within the local entrepreneurial environment”. Originally coined by James Moore (1993) in an influential article in Harvard Business Review, the term ecosystem means that businesses don’t evolve in a ‘vacuum’ but in a relationally embedded context with suppliers, customers and financiers. In dynamic ecosystems, new firms have better opportunities to grow, and create employment, compared with firms created in other locations.
Published in Chapter:
Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in Low-Density Regions: Business Incubation Practices in Alentejo
Maria da Conceição Rego (Universidade de Évora, Portugal), Maria Raquel Lucas (Universidade de Évora, Portugal), Carlos Vieira (Universidade de Évora, Portugal), and Isabel Vieira (Universidade de Évora, Portugal)
Copyright: © 2018
|Pages: 30
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-3525-6.ch003
Abstract
Low density regions face many development challenges. In the Alentejo region of Portugal, and in many other Southern European regions, such challenges have been intensified by the cumulative effects of the financial and economic crises, and the subsequent austerity. In such context, and to promote region catching up and sustainable development, a number of policies designed to promote local entrepreneurial ecosystems have been reinforced. In this study, we focus on one of these policies' instruments – business incubation - and on the region of Alentejo, and describe five incubators implemented by a local regional development association (ADRAL), some municipalities, a national association of young entrepreneurs (ANJE), and a local association of entrepreneurs (NERE). We assess the incubators' distinctive characteristics and those of some incubated projects, aiming at identifying the specificities of this approach and its success determinants.