New developments in innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems Maryann Feldman, 1 Donald S. Siegel, 2, * and Mike Wright 3 1 Department of Public Policy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 209 Abernethy Hall, CB #3435, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3435, USA. e-mail: maryann.feldman@unc.edu, 2 School of Public Affairs, Arizona State University, 411 North Central Avenue, Suite 450, Phoenix, AZ 85004, USA. e-mail: donald.siegel.1@a- su.edu and 3 Center for Management Buyout Research, Imperial College Business School, Exhibition Road, London SW7 2AZ, UK. e-mail: mike.wright@imperial.ac.uk * Main author for correspondence. Abstract In this article, we provide a rationale for this Special Section on innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems. We also present a summary of the papers presented in the Special Section, highlighting research questions, theories, data and methods, and principal findings and conclusions. A research agenda is also identified, involving multi-level research on agents, institutions, and regions on the context, process, and impact of innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems. JEL classification: M13, D24, L31, O31, O32 1. Introduction Innovation is most likely to occur within an entrepreneurial ecosystem that typically involves a set of agents, institu- tions, activities or processes, and surrounding culture. Entrepreneurial ecosystems may be conceived in terms of institutional, geographic, economic, or industrial contexts and can be analyzed at different levels of aggregation (e.g. firms, industries, universities, regions, and nations). In recent years, we have witnessed a substantial rise in academic interest in this topic (Autio et al., 2014, 2018). For example, given the rise of technology commercialization at universities, via patenting, licensing, research joint ventures with private companies, and startup creation, many aca- demics and policymakers have explored the development and expansion of entrepreneurial ecosystems at research universities (e.g. see Link et al., 2015 for reviews). Some key agents, institutions, and initiatives defining university ecosystems include faculty, post-docs, students, alumni, technology transfer offices, science and technology parks, incubators/accelerators, venture capitalists and angel investors, alumni commercialization funds, and a pleth- ora of entrepreneurship programs and centers on campus. Entrepreneurial ecosystems, more generally, benefit from a variety of intermediate organizations (see Clayton et al., 2018 for a review). We also know that ecosystems are evolving complex, diverse, and potentially quite fragile. The open innovation movement along with a growing consensus on the importance of collaborative research and the role of networks also have a major impact on how academics analyze innovation ecosystems (see West and Bogers, 2017 for a review). The convergence of these trends have critical managerial and policy implications, which this Special Section brings together. In a first step we issued an open call to solicit extended abstracts, from which we invited a selection V C The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Associazione ICC. All rights reserved. Industrial and Corporate Change, 2019, 1–10 doi: 10.1093/icc/dtz031 Original article Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/icc/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/icc/dtz031/5513235 by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill user on 16 July 2019