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Ecosystem As the Source of Entrepreneurial Opportunities

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Ecosystem As the Source of Entrepreneurial Opportunities Innovation Ecosystem as the Source of Entrepreneurial Opportunities Julia Trabskaja Research Fellow, [email protected] Tõnis Mets Professor, [email protected] University of Tartu, Ülikooli 18, 50090 Tartu, Estonia Abstract he present paper aims to develop an understanding with successful entrepreneurs who shape the role models of interconnections between the entrepreneurial known in Estonia today as the Skype-effect. Decisions ecosystem and entrepreneurial opportunity. The first on digital telecom infrastructure and e-society in the Tstep of this research was to disclose the development of the early stage of the transition in tandem with enterprise ecosystem within two higher (efficiency- and innovation- encouragement created a subsequent boom in ICT-based driven) stages of economic development and the transition ventures in Estonia 10-15 years later. The processes resulted between them according to the World Economic Forum, in achieving an innovation-driven society and the highest based on the model by Dutch researcher Erik Stam. The level of opportunity-driven entrepreneurship in Europe Estonian entrepreneurial ecosystem was analyzed as an in 2017. With that, new venture funding has replaced the example. Secondary data on Estonian entrepreneurial former development engine – foreign direct investment ecosystems were collected and analyzed. (FDI). In its second step, this research follows a case-study Examples of ICT-based new ventures have demonstrated design. The start-up period of the studied Estonian that the growing maturity of the ecosystem increased venture companies represents different degrees of the maturity of investment from “bootstrapping” to millions of euros of the ecosystem: Regio and Mobi Solutions – efficiency-driven, seed-funding and shortened new product development GrabCAD – the transition from efficiency to innovation- cycles from 5-7 to 1-3 years. The study shows that maturing driven, and Bolt (Taxify) – an innovation-driven economy. ecosystems shorten business development processes, The example of the Estonian ICT sector proves that thereby increasing the integration of different ecosystems. the most important contributors to the talent growth, The start-up success stories enhance trust in the particular the knowledge base, and framework conditions of the business environment, and they both increase investments entrepreneurial ecosystem are the state through its and accelerate the entry of new ventures, making better use infrastructure decisions and educational programs along of the emerging windows of opportunities. Keywords: entrepreneurial ecosystem; opportunity Citation: Trabskaja J., Mets T. (2019) Ecosystem as the identification and transformation; window of opportunity; Source of Entrepreneurial Opportunities. Foresight and STI Governance, vol. 13, no 4, pp. 10–22. DOI: 10.17323/2500- innovation economy; ICT sector 2597.2019.4.10.22 © 2019 by the authors. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). 1010 FORESIGHTFORESIGHT ANDAND STISTI GOVERNANCEGOVERNANCE Vol.Vol. 1313 NoNo 44 20192019 Trabskaja J., Mets T. , pp. 10–22 ne of the roles of the ecosystem’s functioning From the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem is the creation of a base for the identification to a Window of Opportunity of entrepreneurial opportunities. As Shane Oand Venkataraman [Shane, Venkataraman, 2000, p. In recent years, there has been increasing interest in 220] assert, “to have entrepreneurship, you must first entrepreneurial ecosystems among policy makers, re- have entrepreneurial opportunities.” However, twen- searchers [Cohen, 2006; Foster et al., 2013; Isenberg, ty years after this publication, there still has been no 2010; Venkataraman, 2004], and international orga- agreement on the most basic questions among schol- nizations (WEF, OECD, World Bank). ars. To date, there has been little agreement on how Isenberg [Isenberg, 2011] suggests that in spite of the entrepreneurial opportunity and the entrepreneurial uniqueness of ecosystems, it is possible to distin- ecosystem are interconnected. Researchers [Shane, guish key elements of ecosystems and arrange them 2003; Dimov, 2011] argue that opportunities are into groups of factors. An entrepreneurial ecosys- “born” from fertile soil, develop under the influence of tem is therefore defined “as a system of interrelated an entrepreneurial ecosystem, and depend upon the pillars that impact the speed and ability with which entrepreneurial ecosystem’s characteristics and idio- entrepreneurs can create and scale new ventures in a syncrasies. However, there are numerous aspects and sustainable way” [WEF, 2014]. Foster et al. [Foster et gaps left mostly ignored on this topic, among them al., 2013], in further developing Isenberg’s ideas, in- the question of the connection between the evolution troduced the pillars of an entrepreneurial ecosystem. of the ecosystem and entrepreneurial opportunity as Stam [Stam, 2015] further developed the ideas of his well as the matching role of a particular window of predecessors [Foster et al., 2013] and suggested a syn- opportunity. thetic model. However, the series of factors influenc- This paper aims to close this research gap, specifically ing the development of the ecosystem has not been to develop an approach to understanding the inter- widely discussed. action between the ecosystem and the opportunities First, the proposed models are frequently concentrat- therein and to further identify connections between ed on the regional (or national) ecosystem. However, the trajectories of the opportunity and the evolution- in the modern world, no one entrepreneurial ecosys- al paths of the ecosystem. tem can exist in a vacuum and be separate from the To achieve the aim, the Estonian ICT sector was cho- global ecosystem. Global processes have an impact sen as the research subject. In a short period of time upon almost every pillar of the ecosystem – for ex- (since regaining independence in 1991), Estonia has ample, culture (due to the development of technology come a long way from a resource-driven1 country to and the accessibility of information), talents (an open an innovation-driven one, from zero innovation (en- labor market, an education system based upon inter- trepreneurship was banned during the Soviet era) to national student exchange, online courses, etc.) and the creation of a smart economy and a highly devel- so on. This is especially typical of the ICT sector, as oped entrepreneurial ecosystem. This has resulted in it is involved in global trends and processes. Compa- the creation of a whole series of global start-ups that, nies can belong to different ecosystems, such as hav- in turn, have reached the status of unicorns.2 These ing a headquarters (HQ) in one country but working developments, including the boom of start-ups in globally [Mets, 2018]. Therefore, we suggest adding Estonia, were largely due to the introduction of the the global ecosystem context to the Stam model. educational Tiger Leap Program [Mets, 2018], which Second, the models fail to disclose the integration of has led to a focus on human capital and upon the de- and interactions between different ecosystems. The velopment of competence in the ICT industry. entrepreneurial ecosystem is comprised of a series of In order to identify the connection between the eco- sub-ecosystems, which can be systematized according system and opportunity, this paper contains an analy- to the sphere of activity (ecosystems of different sec- sis of the Estonian ecosystem in terms of dynamics tors, including education). Thus, we suggest studying and an analysis of the connection between the eco- the interactions between global and local ecosystems system’s evolution and the trajectories of opportunity as well as sectoral ecosystems. identification (using case studies). A group of researchers has addressed the question of This paper contributes to existing approaches to eco- the ecosystem’s dynamic character. Mason and Brown systems by examining the understanding of an eco- [Mason, Brown, 2014 p.19] argue that, “much of the system’s role as an origin of opportunity identifica- discussion of entrepreneurial ecosystems has lacked tion and the transformation process. a time dimension”. The entrepreneurial ecosystem 1 Authors’ estimation for the period of 1991-1994. 2 Unicorn – a start-up valued at 1 billion USD or more. 2019 Vol. 13 No 4 FORESIGHT AND STI GOVERNANCE 11 Innovation evolves and changes its form drastically along the window of opportunity is a mechanism that links the temporal scale, reacting to changing political, eco- trajectory of the opportunity’s identification and the nomic, and cultural factors. entrepreneurial ecosystem. The creation or appear- A dynamic view of the ecosystem is closely connected ance of a window is one of the most important occur- with the question of path dependence. Is it possible to rences in an entrepreneurial ecosystem. overcome “the narrow trajectory because of historical By using the case of Estonia, we have focused on the experience” [Roundy et al., 2018, p. 5]? Is the ecosys- question of how the ecosystem and the opportunity tem sensitive to initial conditions? In the next section, are connected and how the collection of an ecosys- we argue that path dependence is not always a neces- tem’s pillars form a window of opportunity at a par- sary attribute of ecosystem evolution. ticular stage of economic development.
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