International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management

The concept of ecosystem has been largely used to indicate the network of complementary actors, resources and relationships required to succeed in knowledge-intensive entrepreneurial initiatives. The development of ecosystems has been mostly considered as a region and industry-independent issue. This paper discusses the relevance of fostering the creation of more entrepreneur-centric ecosystems (“EGO-Systems”) to support an effective idea-to-venture process. A model is presented which includes five components (entrepreneurial actor, stakeholders, project, roadmap, flows) and it is addressed to support technology entrepreneurship initiatives through an innovative approach which is glocal, project-specific and dynamic.

Organizations are increasingly shifting from innovation initiatives centered on internal resources to initiatives centered on sharing resources, knowledge and expertise in ecosystems. In these settings, most innovation efforts have to be designed and accomplished at an interorganizational level to produce outcomes. Drawing on the experience of an applied research center in Italy, we explain why academics are in one of the best positions to orchestrate innovation ecosystems. Two main rationales support this key role. The first is associated with the fact that academics are in an independent position, which is neutral and represents a middle ground between the different organizations that share knowledge to ignite and sustain innovation at an ecosystem level. The second rationale is associated with the levels of compliance and complementarity that academics have with the main purposes for which knowledge within an innovation ecosystem is created and leveraged. Two design choices seem necessary to materialize the potential key orchestrator role of academics: (i) the extensive use of multiple approaches of collaborative research; (ii) the creation and maintenance of a knowledge platform allowing academics to progressively diffuse and leverage the ecosystem-based learning mechanisms underlying each innovation effort.

Research on the opportunity recognition stage in the process of entrepreneurships is still in an early stage. This paper is covering the possibility of art as being one of the inspirational sources for entrepreneurs. Once aware of it, an unavoidable observation seems to be: innovative entrepreneurs love art. But is this true? And if it is true what can be the reasons for entrepreneurs to love art? This paper will address these questions by analyzing the data from a project with nine entrepreneurs and nine artists followed by interviews of 14 art-loving entrepreneurs and managers.

This study sheds light on the importance of the exposure to entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial role models regarding the entrepreneurial intention of engineering students, as they are the potential founders of new knowledge intensive start-ups. With this purpose, a questionnaire surveying a sample of 851 engineering students from a technical university in Spain is developed. The results point out that parents who own a business foster entrepreneurial intention and related attitudes in their sons/daughters. To the contrary, civil servants are identified as a negative role model, hindering both attitudes and intentions towards entrepreneurship.

The development of entrepreneurial mindsets in graduated students with science and engineering backgrounds represents an emerging priority for the higher education systems. However, this dimension is still in infancy, especially in Europe. Aimed to contribute at this debate, the study provides evidences on how European universities are approaching this goal. Based on a cross-case analysis of 22 post-graduated programs, the study explores the emerging trends and the “invariance” traits adopted to develop high qualified human capital with an entrepreneurial mindset. Implications for theory and practice include the most pressing challenges for universities involved in their transitions towards an entrepreneurial configuration.

Knowledge and learning mechanisms are investigated in a multiple and inter-related context depicted by the definition of an innovation ecosystem [Lusch and Nambisan (2015)]; by questioning knowledge, the paper opens up practice-based learning studies [Gherardi (2000)]. Action research offered the opportunity to focus on knowledge and learning mechanisms in an emerging innovation ecosystem linked to a project supported by the Italian Ministry of Research. The paper identifies three different knowledge practices — connecting knowledge dots, integrating knowledge, and authoring and disseminating knowledge — to describe learning and knowledge mechanisms in a networking innovation context, leading to an innovation ecosystem.