Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/335136 
Year of Publication: 
2025
Citation: 
[Journal:] Small Business Economics [ISSN:] 1573-0913 [Volume:] 65 [Issue:] 3 [Publisher:] Springer US [Place:] New York, NY [Year:] 2025 [Pages:] 1617-1649
Publisher: 
Springer US, New York, NY
Abstract: 
Entrepreneurial ecosystem measures should combine archival civic and self-reported entrepreneur data. This combination helps to overcome the limitations of aggregated archival data that affect our collective capacity to derive actionable insights for research and policy. Previous measurement approaches lack consistency with entrepreneurial ecosystem theory because they do not capture data at a sufficiently local level or data about entrepreneurs’ values, beliefs, and attitudes. This paper proposes a new measurement approach for EE elements at the district level (NUTS-3), facilitating comparisons of local geographic EE properties and measuring relations between entrepreneurs, new ventures, and their ecosystems. Using confirmatory factor analysis, we combine self-reported and archival data to connect the micro and macro dimensions of the entrepreneurial ecosystem phenomenon. Analyzing survey data from 257 founders of innovative startups across 29 NUTS-3 districts in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, our findings support the “substitutability logic” among ten entrepreneurial ecosystem elements and uncover district-level geographic properties. Our study offers replication possibilities, recommendations for entrepreneurs’ actions, and policy monitoring. Plain English Summary: Policymakers appear to “bend over backwards” to facilitate entrepreneurs, new ventures, and their local ecosystems with various interventions—but how to decide whether they make any difference? Researchers disagree about where to place the boundaries between entrepreneurial ecosystems. To compare one entrepreneurial ecosystem with another, we must decide where entrepreneurs and new ventures belong. Researchers over-relying on public archival data available for relatively large geographic areas, i.e., states (NUTS-1) or regions (NUTS-2), at the expense of survey data about entrepreneurs’ values, beliefs, and attitudes gathered for smaller local areas, i.e., districts (NUTS-3), compound the problem. We propose to resolve the boundary problem with a new measurement approach. First , we gather self-reported and archival data at the district level. Second , we use systematic scale development procedures to validate congeneric measures that reflect EE elements. Third , the survey data helps to connect the micro and macro dimensions of EEs. Taken together, we move toward a measurement approach to reflect on whether local interventions can make a difference.
Subjects: 
Entrepreneurial ecosystems
Measurement development
Construct validation
Confirmatory factor analysis
Spatial granularity
JEL: 
L26
M13
R58
C18
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Article
Document Version: 
Published Version

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