Emergent and growing entrepreneurial ecosystems: How do institutional logics shape fields of entrepreneurship?

This article explores two different types of entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) – emergent and growing – using the institutional logics perspective. Fields of entrepreneurship within EEs are analysed empirically in two U.K. cities, and the institutional orders that inform the dominant entrepreneurial institutional logic in each ecosystem are uncovered. The study reveals that, in an emergent ecosystem, entrepreneurs notice institutional voids and take part in institutional entrepreneurship to strengthen the institutional order of ‘Profession’ and ‘Community’ institutional orders. In a growing EE, the strength of ‘Community’ and ‘Market’ institutional orders and overlapping activity-based fields helps to strengthen the entrepreneurial institutional logic. This perspective develops and enriches our understanding of EEs as localised contexts in which embedded fields of entrepreneurship are sensitive to local institutional conditions, particularly highlighting divergent institutional logics in different ecosystem contexts. This represents a novel approach to analysing EEs through the lens of the institutional logics perspective, by utilising a framework to understand the interinstitutional system-based institutional orders as influencers that shape the dominant institutional logic in a field of entrepreneurship.