Accessibility of Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Elements: A Qualitative Comparative Analysis of Developed and Emerging Economies

The Entrepreneurial Ecosystem construct is gaining widespread popularity due to its holistic approach to enabling entrepreneurship, which in turn fosters economic growth. Consequently, a plethora of studies have been devoted to theorising, examining its attributes, and measuring its impact, with the aim of identifying ways to enhance its contribution. Despite its significance, however, there are challenges associated with identifying suitable measurement instruments that can assess these attributes and determine how they jointly facilitate the survival of new ventures in diverse regions. In this paper, we utilise Qualitative Comparative Analysis to compare 167 ventures in developed and emerging economies, to determine how the various elements of the entrepreneurial ecosystem combine to achieve the desired outcome of new venture survival. Our study adds to the existing literature on ecosystem measurement and provides valuable insights for policymakers and practitioners in identifying potential configurations of ecosystem elements that can support entrepreneurship in different regions. It also represents a novel approach to entrepreneurial ecosystem studies, paving the way for future empirical entrepreneurship research.