Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
hand, high rates of ambitious and technologically innovative high-growth entrants are
stimulated by high levels of investment in knowledge, an abundant supply of informal
investors and venture capital, l uid labour markets and loose buyer-supplier ties. In
addition, these i rms are most likely to be started by mid-career highly educated (male)
individuals. These two explanatory narratives show that entrepreneurship is af ected by
a multitude of factors, and that dif erent types of entrepreneurship are driven by dif erent
mechanisms.
The traditional indicators are also
too narrow
, because there might be entrepreneur-
ship in existing i rms ('intrapreneurship') that escapes most data collection ef orts in
census data and large-scale surveys. This is unfortunate because the ef ects of these types
of entrepreneurship might match or perhaps even overshadow the ef ects of the major-
ity of independent i rms, because intrapreneurs are likely to have much better access
to resources, which improves the success chances of their initiatives. They also face a
selection environment within their employer's organization that might on the one hand
weed out unrealistic market entries, improving the success chance of entrepreneurial
initiatives, but on the other hand it might be a too conservative environment, killing of
initiatives that might really add value in the long term (but perhaps also cannibalizing
the current proi t generating activities of the mother i rm).
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In a theoretical perspective,
intrapreneurship might be rel ected in decisions to set up new product divisions within
existing i rms, an important element of 'branching processes' as described in Frenken
and Boschma (2007). This also connects to a Penrosean theory of i rm growth by diversi-
i cation related to the knowledge base of the i rm (Penrose, 1959; Stam et al., 2006).
This discussion of too broad and too narrow indicators of entrepreneurship shows
clearly that it does not make sense to talk about
the
geography of entrepreneurship.
Dif erent explanatory frameworks are needed to explain dif erent kinds of entrepreneur-
ship. Likewise, existing theoretical frameworks - for example, organizational ecology,
social network, and evolutionary economics - do not provide complete explanations for
all kinds of entrepreneurship. In order to improve our insights into the spatial variations
of entrepreneurship, we need to specify the type of entrepreneurship that is of impor-
tance for the research question at hand, so we can match it with the related theoretical
framework and empirical indicators.
The studies reviewed share a quantitative, static and rather deterministic orienta-
tion, which is in contrast to a more dynamic orientation that is central in evolution-
ary approaches.
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In evolutionary approaches the role of agency and interaction with
(evolving) selection environments is emphasized. This agency is af ected by and af ects
several ontological layers, ranging from the cognitive abilities of entrepreneurs to macr-
oeconomic and environmental shocks (see Fuller and Moran, 2001). Entrepreneurs are
agents who are conditioned by, and sometimes change or even initiate, complex adap-
tive systems. These systems are situated in particular geographic contexts, and emerge,
grow and decline over time. Complex systems that are currently well known because of
their high levels of entrepreneurship, for example the high-tech clusters in Silicon Valley
and Cambridge, are located in regions that were dominated by agriculture and low
levels of entrepreneurship some decades ago. The supply of venture capital is created
by co-evolutionary processes in which the emergence of entrepreneurial communities
strengthens (for example because of serial entrepreneurs who have sold their businesses
and reinvest their money in new ventures as business angels or venture capitalists) and
