Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
studies, international business studies, and economic geography (see Yeung, 2009).
More in general, the traditional focus of evolutionary economic geography on advanced
capitalist economies has left many opportunities to be pursued for analysing the spatial
aspects of entrepreneurship in transition and emerging economies. This road not taken
is even more relevant as recent evidence suggests that entrepreneurship is a more impor-
tant driver of economic growth in transition and emerging economies than in advanced
capitalist economies (Stam et al., 2007).
Entrepreneurship is a phenomenon that has become increasingly important as a
driver of economic growth in advanced capitalist economies, but also in transition and
emerging economies. Economic geography has already built a tradition in analysing the
spatial distributions of entrepreneurship (focusing on the regional level of analysis), and
evolutionary economics has recently (re)discovered entrepreneurship as a key element of
industrial dynamics (focusing on the i rm and industry level of analysis), while network
approaches have proven to be valuable in the explanation of the behaviour of entrepre-
neurs. If these approaches are combined in a dynamic perspective and also include the
very micro-level of the entrepreneur, the macro-institutional conditions and the levels in
between, they will deliver a very powerful approach for understanding wealth creation
on multiple levels and multiple time scales.
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to acknowledge comments and suggestions from Ron Boschma, Niels
Bosma, Guido Buenstorf, Jan Lambooy, and Ron Martin.
Notes
1. See Breslin (2008) for a comprehensive review of the evolutionary approach to the study of entrepreneur-
ship.
2. Here is a straightforward connection to evolutionary economics, dei ned as 'that body of economic
theory in which the transformation of already existing structures and the emergence and possible spread
of novelties are investigated' (Foss, 1994, p. 21).
3.
See for the overlaps of evolutionary economics and social network theory Sorenson (2003), of organiza-
tional ecology and social network theory Aldrich (1999) and Audia et al. (2006), and of organizational
ecology and evolutionary economics Boone and Van Witteloostuijn (1995), Geroski (2001) and Van
Wissen (2004).
4.
Evolutionary economic geography describes economic development by changes in the time-space dis-
tribution of routines (Boschma and Frenken, 2006). This means that the i rm rather than the locality is
the unit of analysis. The shift from territory to i rm resonates a more general reorientation in economic
geography from territorial analysis of endowments or institutions to i rm analysis of routines and compe-
tencies and their embeddedness in the local and global economy (Boschma, 2004; Maskell, 2001; Wrigley
et al., 2005).
5.
The related concept of competences has even been aggregated from the i rm to the regional level (Lawson,
1999).
6.
Glaeser (2007) for example found that industry mix and demographic composition (age (older), educa-
tion (skilled)) are the most important determinants of the heterogeneity in self-employment rates across
space.
7.
For individuals the probability of
preferring to be self-employed
strongly decreases with age, while the
probability of
being self-employed
strongly increases with age (Blanchl ower et al., 2001).
8.
See also the section on the organizational production of entrepreneurship.
9.
A strong science base is not a sui cient condition for an entrepreneurial region to occur. There are multi-
ple regions where a strong scientii c base has failed to spawn entrepreneurship (e.g. Ithaca (Cornell) and
New Haven (Yale)). A recent study on new i rm formation in the Netherlands (Bosma et al., 2007) also
did not i nd a relation between the presence of a university and high levels of new i rm formation. The
authors explain this as being the result of a general lack of knowledge transfer from universities in the
Netherlands.
