The resilience of entrepreneurial ecosystems

Despite intense scholarly interest in entrepreneurial ecosystems, research has not explicitly emphasized ecosystem-level dynamics or explored sources of variance among ecosystems. We theorize that entrepreneurial ecosystems are heterogeneous in a key, system-level characteristic: resilience. We define entrepreneurial ecosystem resilience and theorize that it is intimately tied to the interaction between micro- and macro-level processes of an ecosystem. We contend that entrepreneurial ecosystems differ in both the diversity of participants, ventures, business models, and support organizations, and their coherence around shared values and activities. The interplay between ecosystem diversity and coherence, in turn, produces resilience. Our theory has implications for scholars, entrepreneurs, and policy-makers.