Abstract
We investigate how entrepreneurial support organizations (ESOs) act as governance actors within their ecosystems while also managing their ecosystem’s relationships to neighboring ecosystems with resource imbalances. Our research setting is one U.S. state, Georgia, which presents a unique setting for analyzing the relationship of core and peripheral entrepreneurial ecosystems, since it is economically dominated by one metropolitan area (Atlanta). We use qualitative data from over 40 interviews with ESO managers in six Georgia regions to ask how ESOs day-to-day operations relate to their roles as ecosystem intermediaries, nested within a broader system of ecosystems. We then examine how ecosystem governance actors in the core ecosystem perceive their relationships and role with respect to peripheral ecosystems, and vice versa. Our results highlight the ways in which entrepreneurial ecosystems develop and relate to each other through their intermediaries as governance actors across an uneven geography of entrepreneurial activity. We contribute to the literatures on entrepreneurial ecosystems and ecosystem governance, and conclude with practical implications for policy and planning.
Keywords
Introduction
The entrepreneurial ecosystems framework continues to proliferate as both a theoretical and practical model for organizing and understanding regional entrepreneurial development. These ecosystems constitute a set of policies, institutions, finance providers, support organizations, intangible cultural elements, and more, that coalesce to support innovative activity and entrepreneurship in regions (Malecki, 2018; Stam and Van de Ven, 2021). In ecosystems, horizontal, principal-principal interactions between public and private sector agents and institutions foster social connection and knowledge spillovers that contribute to productive entrepreneurship and regional development (Autio, 2022; Cooke and Morgan, 1993; Morgan, 2007). Certain actors may take on leading roles, guiding actions, norms, relationships, and intermediating entrepreneurs to resources (Autio and Levie, 2017; Colombo et al., 2019). Further, regions may contain multiple ecosystems, where boundaries are based on varied geography (different parts of city or state), on networks that may be nested sub-ecosystems, or siloed on entrepreneurial sector or demographics.
This diversity and complexity of relationships and institutions across transient regional boundaries makes ecosystem coordination by planning and policy actors difficult, with the potential to exacerbate resource imbalances across ecosystems. Research on sub- and siloed ecosystems, for example, suggests that uneven ecosystem relations emerge due to geographic distance between areas, a lack of coordinating actors and/or vision, and resource imbalances. Additionally, this literature argues these ecosystems’ operations are characterized by unidentified gaps in resource needs and a lack of communication between actors (Brunner and Messeghem, 2025; Candeias and Sarkar, 2024; Loots et al., 2021; Theodoraki et al., 2022). These challenges motivate a role for ecosystem governance actors. While there are many potential governance actors, in this paper we focus on the role of one type of governance actor in a multiple ecosystem setting: entrepreneurial support organizations (ESOs).
ESOs are vital components of entrepreneurial ecosystems as resource providers and network builders. They often serve as the most visible nodal points of the ecosystem. These intermediaries connect founders with resources such as funding, mentorship opportunities, and access to physical space and customers, which would otherwise not be available through independent action alone (Bergmann et al., 2016; Clayton et al., 2018). While research has examined the role of these institutions in the entrepreneurial process, scholars are increasingly investigating the governance and coordinating role of ESOs within an ecosystem (Flögel et al., 2024; Porras-Paez and Schmutzler, 2019), as well as the ways in which ESOs in place-based ecosystems are nested within broader regional groupings (Harrington, 2017). Several studies articulate how ESOs can pursue aims outside their internal mission that end up coordinating other elements of an ecosystem toward the pursuit of collective goals (Bonomi Santos et al., 2023; Colombelli et al., 2019). Missing from the ecosystem governance and ESO intermediation literature, though, is consideration of how governance actors coordinate both within and between multiple ecosystems to develop networks and overcome structural barriers and competition for resources.
In this paper we first ask whether and how ESOs act as ecosystem governance actors in their individual ecosystems. We then investigate their role as intermediaries and managing ecosystem relationships with other neighboring ecosystems. We do so from the perspective of one regional economy, a U.S. state, which has a dominant core economic region and well-resourced entrepreneurial ecosystem, and several peripheral, nascent ecosystems that are growing but face different structural barriers to productive entrepreneurship. The state is a useful geographic boundary for comparative study of multiple, related entrepreneurial sub-ecosystems. In answering our first question, we focus on how ESOs’ day-to-day operations, regarding their scope, functions, clients, and sources of funding, relate to their roles as within ecosystem actors, nested within a broader system of ecosystems. This question pertains to the structure and perception of how local actors cohere into an ecosystem, at multiple scales. To answer our second question, we consider how ecosystem intermediaries in peripheral ecosystems understand, coordinate and intermediate relationships to the core ecosystem and how these actors perceive the relationship to the core impacting on structural barriers in the peripheral entrepreneurial landscape in terms of resource concentration, available talent, and other factors.
Our research setting is the state of Georgia, and specifically ESOs in six regions: the capital city Atlanta and its surrounding counties with a thriving entrepreneurial scene, and five mid-sized cities each attempting to carve a path forward in entrepreneurial development in tradable and technology-intensive sectors. Atlanta and its surrounding metropolitan area are consistently named one of the best places in the country to start a firm (Anders, 2023; Office of the Governor, 2024). We compare the dynamics of the core metropolitan ecosystem with those in peripheral ecosystems. Our data come from interviews with over 40 ESO managers across our six regions, as well as from secondary data for local economic and demographic analysis.
We contribute to the literature on entrepreneurial ecosystem governance and intermediaries by demonstrating how ESO leaders act as governance actors within and across ecosystems. We find that governance in the core ecosystem is focused on different concerns from periphery, nascent ecosystems. While the core Atlanta ecosystem has a complex entrepreneurial environment that governance actors are trying to coordinate, periphery ecosystem governance is focused on overcoming structural barriers that cause entrepreneurs to move to the core instead of growing locally. We provide evidence that ESOs and their leaders are central to the operations of local and regional entrepreneurial environments and that their collective goal motivations can surpass local ecosystem boundaries. Our practical contributions are to describe the opportunity for region-wide collaboration on entrepreneurship to boost regional economic vitality and lessen uneven opportunities shaped by geography.
Theoretical background: Entrepreneurial ecosystem governance
Entrepreneurial ecosystems are networks of actors and institutions that foster a positive entrepreneurship-based business environment (Fernandes and Ferreira, 2022; Harper-Anderson, 2018; Malecki, 2018; Spigel, 2017, 2022; Stam and Van de Ven, 2021). Ecosystems include any combination of leadership, finance, talent, knowledge, support services, physical infrastructure, and intangible culture (Ierapetritis, 2019). Effective ecosystems foster and channel knowledge spillovers, by which ecosystem members, especially entrepreneurs and their firms, can learn and mutually benefit from other actors within the system (Audretsch and Feldman, 1996; Qian, 2018). Since entrepreneurship can stimulate local economies through the creation of new jobs and by enhanced productivity through innovation, there has been increasing economic development efforts to develop ecosystems from within localities rather than to pursue older “smokestack chasing” strategies (Acs et al., 2008).
The ecosystem governance literature, building on network governance and agency theories, calls attention to how ecosystems are, or may be, intentionally coordinated and developed. Colombo et al. (2019, p. 422) define ecosystem governance as actions “to coordinate and motivate entrepreneurial activities by setting rules and norms.” As the entrepreneurial ecosystem framework evolves, questions in practice and theory have arisen as to how these systems can be directed toward more productive entrepreneurship and to explicate the role of policy. Once ecosystems experience a takeoff phase and many networks and institutions take form, and new actors and firms enter, it may be challenging from a regional development perspective to ascertain where are resource gaps, unnecessary duplications, fragmented networks and other issues that could lead to suboptimal entrepreneurial outcomes for commercialization, hiring employees, acquiring finance, and more (Autio and Levie, 2017). Since many stakeholders emerge with potentially contradictory goals, governance has become a critical concern for growing ecosystems (Colombo et al., 2019; Nave et al., 2025). Similarly, for nascent ecosystems without critical mass and in more resource deficient environments, governance may be needed to coordinate assets and develop networks when few resources exist to overcome structural barriers, yet the research finds contradictory results on the effectiveness of such approaches (Autio, 2022; Colombo et al., 2019).
Ecosystem governance research highlights methods by which governance occurs and acknowledges a need to develop this understanding further. Typically, approaches are summarized as either top-down or bottom-up, but a third “bottom-up-top-down” or “collective impact” option is increasingly recognized as a closer representation of the heterogeneous nature by which different ecosystems operate (Autio, 2022; Autio and Levie, 2017; Colombo et al., 2019; Knox and Arshed, 2022). Top-down efforts imply purposeful ecosystem design and policy intervention, while bottom-up describes a self-organizing variant of governance. Bottom-up-top-down acknowledges policy and institutions may intervene in self-organizing processes. These studies have investigated the role of various actors or groups of actors as intermediaries for ecosystem governance including scientific principal investigators (Cunningham et al., 2019), research joint ventures (Audretsch and Link, 2019), and venture capital groups and research parks (Cumming et al., 2019). These examples illustrate that governance can happen at multiple different levels. Knox and Arshed (2022) describe how national government, local government, ESOs, and individuals are all stakeholders with potential to structure local ecosystems. Anchors like universities and intermediaries are posited throughout this literature as actual or potential ecosystem governance actors because of their broad networks and ability to organize disparate resources (Colombelli et al., 2019; Cuningham et al., 2019). Importantly, any ecosystem governance actor must develop “deep stakeholder engagement” for a holistic understanding of the ecosystem, as typical business metrics do not well measure ecosystem activities (Autio and Levie, 2017).
Governance within and between multiple entrepreneurial ecosystems
One question that has not been adequately addressed in the ecosystem governance literature is how governance occurs when there are multiple ecosystems, which may be overlapping in both geographic and institutional sense. Geographically, sub-ecosystems exist within a broader ecosystem where the sub-ecosystems may or may not interact. Institutionally, multiple ecosystems nested within an institutional boundary like a U.S. state, where interaction may occur due to the common political and policy context as well as proximity.
Entrepreneurship and innovation are spatially concentrated, in that the process of making advancements in a market tends to be contained within certain geographic areas (Audretsch and Feldman, 1996). Given that population and entrepreneurial activity are not distributed in a spatially even manner, it follows that innovation also retains a uniquely unequal geography (Andrews and Whalley, 2022). For instance, scholars have found that cities and major metros have the highest concentrations of capital and talent (Florida and Mellander, 2015; Simon and Nardinelli, 2002). Therefore, the uneven distribution of resources both within and between regions manifests also unevenly in entrepreneurial ecosystems. Some will be well-resourced, while others lag or struggle to even identify such an ecosystem. Understanding more about governance within and across multiple, interacting or interrelated ecosystems is critical for policy guidance, especially when interrelated ecosystems exhibit different contextual features and face different structural barriers.
There is growing interest in understanding entrepreneurial ecosystems as a product of policy and institutional nesting, with a focus on the interconnected layers of individual ecosystems comprised of different groups of actors. In practice, this web may result in both spatial and resource-based dependence (Harima et al., 2024; Harima and Harima, 2024). For instance, once the nesting linkage is made (either by an actor within the ecosystem or by an individual ecosystem within that of the broader region), it fosters a need for the dependent relationship to persist (Cloutier and Messeghem, 2022; Roundy and Bayer, 2019). Therefore, any individual ecosystem has ties or potential connections to other entrepreneurial ecosystems. In contrast, siloed ecosystems are defined by productive yet uncoordinated entrepreneurship systems that do not have elements that interface with one another or with other ecosystems (Candeias and Sarkar, 2024; Cavallo, 2024). This may mean the cultural, social, or physical attributes of an ecosystem are not operating properly or are not connected well enough with adjacent or high-level ecosystems in the region (Spigel, 2017).
At a broader regional level, multiple ecosystems can interact to produce outputs that affect well-being and outcomes, further embedding the culture of the earlier ecosystems (Bramwell et al., 2019; Cantner et al., 2021; Ierapetritis, 2019; Qian, 2018; Schaeffer et al., 2021). Nearby ecosystems that have achieved greater success are likely to become examples which other lagging regions attempt to replicate a “cargo cult” of copy-and-paste policies across regions that may not be effective (Wurth et al., 2022). Recent research that analyzes the idiosyncrasies of entrepreneurial ecosystems in smaller American contexts, such as Chattanooga, Tennessee, Columbus, Ohio, and the state of Montana, identifies how policy interventions may be better tailored to specific needs (Motoyama et al., 2022, 2023). It is worth considering how governance in more well-resourced ecosystems may extend and support those that are more under-resourced.
We introduce the concepts of core and periphery ecosystems to describe dynamics within a larger regional context where multiple ecosystems operate. Core-periphery models are central concepts of urban theory and describe how economic activity is spatially organized around a core region (Friedmann, 1966). Variations of this model consider monocentric versus polycentric regions, where polycentric regions contain several economic cores and a periphery. We present that the core-periphery model is a useful model for elucidating the relationships among multiple entrepreneurial ecosystems. Applying the core-periphery model framing to entrepreneurial ecosystems suggests that core ecosystems will be those with greater resources, greater potential for breadth and depth of networks due to a larger population and business size, and a more complex system of actors due to size and broader array of technological capabilities and value chains. Competition for resources will be intensive, but this will also be the case for peripheral ecosystems which are defined by smaller business populations, weaker local resource availability, and greater difficulty accessing clients and markets. While the ecosystem governance literature outlines how multiple types of actors may be involved in ecosystem governance, we focus on one group of such intermediaries, entrepreneurial support organizations (ESOs) and on the ways these groups compare in their governance within and between core and periphery ecosystems to overcome barriers to productive entrepreneurship. The next section briefly introduces these organizations and situates their potential roles as governance actors.
ESOs as ecosystem governance actors
ESOs are local entrepreneurship intermediaries that provide incubation space, networking, mentoring, peer support, finance, and other resources through a variety of organizational forms. They are managed and owned by a variety of entities including universities, private corporations, non-profits, economic development groups, and government agencies. Universities, for example, operate a number of different ESO forms that technology transfer, student and faculty entrepreneurship, and often even entrepreneurs not affiliated with the university but in the local community (Drucker and Goldstein, 2007; Flanagan et al., 2023) including entrepreneurship degree programs and operating ESOs that connect entrepreneurs with mentors and provide physical incubation space. ESOs can be created as solo entities for the purpose of supporting entrepreneurs. Often, existing organizations such as non-profits and economic development agencies add new functions to serve as ESOs. Private companies also create their own ESOs to explore new ideas or find promising firms to acquire. Venture capital funds operate ESOs to identify promising firms and provide intensive mentoring.
ESO intermediate both resources and networks between firms and their local environment (Harima et al., 2024). When ESOs operate as governance actors, they are part of a system of partnership and leadership, through which connectivity across actors helps founders access the flow of information, knowledge, and financial resources (Harper-Anderson, 2018). Knox et al. (2024) found, for example, that coworking spaces, a popular ESO format, have broader community impacts in terms of supporting general well-being and productivity as well as stimulating venture development and social innovation. Flögel et al. (2024, p. 134) find when ESOs participate in broader orchestration efforts in lagging regions they contribute to a “positive regional image and identity” and the “enhancement of inter-sectoral and inter-municipal cooperation.” Not all ESOs take on broader organizing roles though, as Bonomi Santos et al. (2023) describe—sufficient resources and an interest in playing this role are pre-requisites.
We consider the role of ESOs as ecosystem governance actors within the context of core and periphery ecosystems, to provide new knowledge on whether and how ESOs act as governance actors in these highly differentiated contexts characterized by strong resources and networks and a more complex array of actors and institutions in the core case, and weaker resources and less extensive networks in the peripheral case. We then consider whether and how ESO governance extends outside the focal ecosystem, to determine relationships and knowledge flows between core and periphery.
Research setting
Each US state has a different structure with regards to its constituent economic regions. Some states are more monocentric, in that one metropolitan area makes up over a majority of its total population and economic activity, while others have multiple cores and thus a more evenly distributed landscape of population and economic activity. For this paper, we focus on the case of Georgia, with its monocentric core in the Atlanta metropolitan statistical area (MSA). This metro contains roughly 60% of the state’s population and a greater share in economic product (Katz, 2012; U.S. Census Bureau, nd-a, nd-b). Scholars have suggested using metropolitan areas as the unit of analysis when studying the scale at which innovation and entrepreneurial activities occur.
Prior literature on the Atlanta region highlights the role of universities in its ecosystem, especially Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) and its Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) ESO (Breznitz and Taylor, 2014; Conti et al., 2013; Youtie and Shapira, 2008). University linkages between Georgia Tech and entrepreneurial firms have been strengthened by university-led knowledge spillovers and technology transfer.
Georgia contains several nascent or aspirational entrepreneurial ecosystems in mid-sized cities around the state including in the Athens, Augusta, Columbus, Macon, and Savannah regions. For instance, Athens’ ecosystem is shaped by the University of Georgia, which has strengths in veterinary and agricultural innovation (Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, nd). Additionally, Augusta is home to the US Army Cyber Command Center, Savannah’s economy is supported by its major port and growing electric car manufacturing, and Columbus and Macon have both been working to foster homegrown innovators through ESO growth. These peripheral regions provide a useful context for understanding the role of governance actors around the state and how they are influenced by the core’s ecosystem.
Population and employer businesses trends in Georgia metros.
Source: Census Bureau population data and 2018/2023 Annual Business Survey.
Entrepreneurial support organizations in Georgia metros.
Source: Clayton (2024) database.
Note. Service type “Other” category includes Competition, Consulting, Economic Development, Events, Media, Professional Services, Research, University Commercialization, Workforce.
To visually depict the Georgia ecosystem landscape, Figure 1 plots the location of the ESOs in Table 2 throughout the state. Atlanta ESOs are in blue, Athens ESOs are in orange, Augusta ESOs are in yellow, Columbus ESOs are in purple, Macon ESOs are in pink, and Savannah ESOs are in gray. The peripheral areas are located at varying distances from the sprawling Atlanta metro, which nonetheless has ESO concentrations centered in the city’s intown neighborhoods. Any overplotting results from multiple ESOs’ addresses being near each other. While the US Census definition of the Atlanta MSA now includes 29 counties, for our research purposes, we consider the smaller 11 county region defined by the regional economic development organization (Atlanta Regional Commission) as the appropriate boundary for selecting ESOs to study the Atlanta ecosystem. Map of Georgia Entrepreneurial Support Organizations. Source: Authors using Esri from Clayton (2024) database. Note. Organizations colored by region. While formally in its CSA, Statesboro ESOs are included as part of the Savannah MSA because they are included as interviewees for that region in our study and are located most closely to Savannah.
Methodology & data
We use a case study methodology to compare core and periphery ESO governance roles within their respective entrepreneurial ecosystems in Georgia. We draw particular attention to the dynamics characterizing governance and relationships both within and between core and periphery ecosystems (Clark et al., 2021; Miller and Acs, 2017). Our data are obtained from interviews, which provide understanding of ecosystem dynamics from their members, allowing for rich analysis of context and networks that cannot be achieved through larger-scale quantitative data. 1 Scholars have utilized case methods and interviews to study entrepreneurial ecosystems in the United States and internationally (Cowell et al., 2018; Mack and Mayer, 2016; Miller and Acs, 2017; Neumeyer et al., 2019; Theodoraki et al., 2018), but the literature has not considered the core-periphery ecosystem relationships within one broader economic region.
Interview process
We conducted interviews with ESO managers in all regions of the study (Atlanta, Athens, Augusta, Columbus, Macon, and Savannah) to collect information on ESO practices and how these relate to governance experiences in their broader entrepreneurial ecosystem(s). Our interview questions were open-ended, and we encouraged the respondents to dive deeper into areas in which each conversation went. Therefore, while our interviews were grounded in a series of questions, we took an exploratory approach to allow each interviewee to expand on areas of importance to them.
To identify interviewees we used the Georgia Innovation Ecosystem database (Clayton, 2024), which contains information on the universe of ESOs that comprise the statewide entrepreneurial ecosystem. As interviews commenced, we asked interviewees to identify others in similar roles that would be useful for informing our research questions, thus utilizing a snowball sampling method as well. Where applicable, we also use publicly available secondary information, such as program websites, application documents, news articles, and corporate releases, to expand the knowledge base on ESO activities when missing from the Georgia Innovation Ecosystem database.
Interviewees.
Analytical lens
We operationalized the broader categories into distinct interview questions to address our research questions. To answer our first question regarding governance in the core ecosystem, Atlanta-based ESO leaders were asked about their perceptions of interactions within the Atlanta entrepreneurial ecosystem, concerning their overall view on its strengths and weaknesses, coordination between actors, and the role of founders. Interviews with ESO managers located in the periphery ecosystems were asked the same questions about their own ecosystems, as this was the original focus of our interviews. However, a pattern emerged where periphery ESO managers, un-prompted, began to describe their relationships to the Atlanta ecosystem. These discussions are used to answer our second research question about the core-periphery ecosystem dynamics. We followed a thematic analysis approach, grouping together common topics mentioned by interviewees.
Results
We organize our results around the multiple levels of ecosystem activity, first looking at individual ESO operations as governance actors in the core Atlanta ecosystem, and second, considering the relationships between the core and peripheral ecosystems from the perspectives of ESO leaders across regions. Each organizing level focuses on different themes that emerged from the interviews. Quotes are denoted by the interviewees to which they belong, as seen in Table 3.
Governance in the Atlanta entrepreneurial ecosystem
From individual ESO mission to ecosystem mission
Interviews revealed that most ESO leaders discussed the ways in which their organization’s goals and its relationships to the broader ecosystem are a direct result of their origin stories. ESO leaders cited a diverse set of origin stories driven by a variety of actors. Interviewees mentioned Georgia’s state government and Georgia Tech as forward-thinking actors in the creation of local and regional ESOs beginning in the 1980s. Other leaders highlighted the ways in which national or international ESOs founded Atlanta-based chapters to tackle an increasing need for streamlined support. Lastly, a few leaders named their organizations’ original founders as the visionaries behind their current operations or their missions (for social equity, demographic-based assistance, etc.) as central to their origin story. This finding aligns with literature on the ecosystems’ social clusters that form based on demographics, venture type, and institutional support, with capital more easily flowing to clusters focused on scalability and clusters focused on survival being comprised of disadvantaged groups (Neumeyer et al., 2019).
One interviewee that works for an ESO that holds an annual conference to bring international investors together with companies from the Southeast noted multiple times that their role is to use the event to make Atlanta the premier place for entrepreneurship in the broader region (Atlanta-1). This is well evidenced by other ecosystem actors synchronizing their events with the conference to maximize contacts with investors. To steer the ecosystem to pay attention to female founders, an ESO leader noted the strength of their workshop series that highlights unique topics like the psychological components of entrepreneurship such as confidence (Atlanta-14).
One large-scale ESO said their organizational goal was to fill the gap in coordination between ESOs, rather than simply adding another resource-based organization to the ecosystem. This is a deliberative governance act. To elaborate, the leader emphasized three main components of this strategy: a corporate innovation council that connects the over 40 corporate innovation hubs in the city, an innovation alliance that brings educational leaders, corporate leaders and ESOs together to bridge sectors, and the direct connection of ESOs and the existing networks between them (Atlanta-13). There are also smaller programs like one program where mid-size scalable companies ($2–100 million in revenue) network and co-support one another to fill a gap in business/growth support (Atlanta-13).
Coordination across ESOs
Several interviewees mentioned higher education institutions as important connective actors, either through direct affiliation or partnership. Georgia Tech’s ATDC was among the ESOs most mentioned by interviewees, making it the clearest example of an ESO with a governance role in the regional ecosystem. ATDC is one of the oldest and largest university-sponsored ESOs in the country, having been founded in the early 1980s. ATDC was mentioned by other ESO managers as a useful coordination partner that helps to spur new activities, events, and funding sources because it supports any innovation-based firm in Georgia, not just Georgia Tech. More broadly, Georgia Tech’s role in increasing its internal commercialization activities has had positive spinoff effects for external ESOs according to the interviewees. Eleven of the 20 Atlanta ESO leader interviewees either represented a university or mentioned one during their interview, highlighting their importance in anchoring intermediaries with roles that extend into the broader ecosystem.
Some ESO leaders explicitly mentioned that their main responsibility to the ecosystem is as a coordinator, rather than adding more actors to the mix and potentially duplicate services (Atlanta-6). Important facets include information dissemination, holding public-facing events, and conducting outreach to contacts that can informally help founders (Atlanta-10; Atlanta-13). The funding context that Atlanta ESOs find themselves in also impacts their outlook on the entire Atlanta ecosystem, as well as the strategies that organizations use to coordinate the actors and activities within. For example, one ESO manager noted a change in focus regarding firm type after the city passed a grant specifically for increasing middle-wage jobs (Atlanta-3). Cooperation was commonly given as an answer to the challenges that Atlanta faces in its ecosystem, as the wide array of firm types founded in the region can lead to disconnected service domains. Interestingly, one ESO respondent answered that the region’s coordination needs improvement and that a possible avenue for this is to pick one or a few industries upon which to focus (such as fintech, cybersecurity, or transport and logistics) and prioritize public investments in those areas to supplement or attract follow on private capital (Atlanta-7).
Perceptions of core ecosystem strengths and weaknesses
A few quotes from our interviewees stood out as being indicative of how Atlanta’s intermediaries view the strengths of the state’s core ecosystem. Again, specific actors, such as Georgia Tech, were often cited as strengths because of their innovative output and capacity to support entrepreneurship (Atlanta-11). For instance, when asked about the region’s entrepreneurship and technology strengths, one respondent said: “… Atlanta is known for several things, it's known for SaaS, it's known for FinTech now; it's known for cybersecurity and to a certain degree healthcare informatics. Those are sort of the core competencies … It is not known, for example, for chip startups, even though Georgia Tech's electrical engineering department is the largest in the country … We're very strong in wireless. We probably lag there in terms of the number of startups we should have, based on Georgia Tech's … preeminence in the space.” (Atlanta-15)
Beyond a sector-based focus, many interviewees answered that the Atlanta ecosystem is inviting (“Southern hospitality”), has a collaborative spirit, and an overall tightknit community that sets it apart from other large metros (Atlanta-1; Atlanta-9; Atlanta-13). These characteristics lend themselves to strong ecosystem coordination, with which respondents consistently prefaced their statements to this question, as well as its strengths in producing middle-tier businesses (Atlanta-4; Atlanta-7; Atlanta-9). In fact, one respondent shared that the state has a coordinated vision (Georgia-1). Still, based on other responses it is unclear how that vision was manifesting at the time, and many of the Atlanta intermediaries think greater coordination is needed.
There were also comments throughout our interviews indicating that some ESO leaders view the entrepreneur support environment as saturated or improperly used by some founders. One interviewee noted that the relative ease of starting a business in the Atlanta area means founders do not also plan out their ventures properly, leading to failure (Atlanta-12). The potential over-dependency of founders on ESOs found in the literature (Harima et al., 2024; Harima and Harima, 2024) was echoed in the following quote particularly about Black founders: “The ecosystem is getting better. Looking back to where it was 10, 12 years ago, when I was a startup founder, it’s lightyears ahead. I mean, there are so many opportunities for Black founders. Now we actually feel like we're spoiling them. It created a subculture or a culture where founders, Black founders in particular, are going from program to program, hopping around. They are basically turning into professional students but never graduating. They’re hopping from program to program, and they're happy about that. They'll make announcements like “Oh, I got into this program where I did this pitch competition.” What they’re not talking about is how their business is progressing.” (Atlanta-9)
Many ESO leaders noted that the issues in the ecosystem go beyond the founders and are more structural. Above all else, interviewees commented on the lack of capital flowing through the ecosystem, irrespective of its growth in recent years. The ecosystem was described as lacking a robust investor community built from local money, as well as industries that are simply lacking access to capital (i.e., outside of technology and the creative sector) (Atlanta-2; Atlanta-3; Atlanta-4). There is also an urban form issue mentioned regarding strengthening the regional ecosystem. As one of the most sprawling metropolitan areas in the United States, Atlanta presents a unique challenge, in that connecting disparate geographic locations within the region can be difficult (Atlanta-5). Interviewees also noted the longstanding challenge of ensuring ESOs can help individuals overcome historical biases to access ecosystem resources (Atlanta-5; Atlanta-8). In summary, there are real differences between how ESO leaders view Atlanta’s strengths and weaknesses. What emerges from the interviews, though, is a sense that these intermediaries are actively engaged in attempting to steer the ecosystem toward overall outcomes that are more productive for entrepreneurial firms.
Competing, cooperating or coexisting? Periphery ecosystems
Periphery governance actors and structural barriers
Throughout the periphery ecosystem interviews, it became clear that the governance actors in these regions use the core Atlanta ecosystem as a benchmark for how they view their local ecosystem’s progress, either positive or negative. One of the most common takeaways from the interviews with ESO leaders from outside the Atlanta metro area was their perception of Atlanta as having substantively more resources than other parts of the state, in terms of staffing, talent, and finance. One ESO leader in the city of Augusta said Atlanta was viewed “as the 8,000-pound gorilla in the room, with a lot of resources flowing through the city,” (Augusta-2) leading some of their responsibility to be focused on both enticing entrepreneurs away from Atlanta and retaining those that founded firms locally. This means that local governance by ESOs in these smaller regions, which is performed by a much smaller group of leaders in each city, sees local ecosystem evolution as inherently tied to governance in the core ecosystem. There is a dynamic that is central to their ideas about guiding and growing the ecosystem that does not seem to be considered by the Atlanta ecosystem coordinators.
Other interviewees in Athens, Augusta, and Savannah consistently answered that it was a challenge to keep local founders within the area, as they may leave to expand their business in Atlanta after the trial and educational period under the local ecosystem. ESOs therefore are focused on ways to improve broader ecosystem and local conditions to keep entrepreneurs local. These efforts include trying to overcome a lack of dedicated office space, shallow labor market, or limited commercialization opportunities. These local governance actors shared that while their local higher education institutions helped lower entrepreneurship costs, they have limited resources themselves and cannot act as a strong anchor the way that Atlanta universities may to help resolve the kinds of structural barriers smaller town ecosystems face.
Organizing for differentiation and identity
Throughout the periphery ecosystem interviews, respondents consistently noted that they wanted to guide the local entrepreneurial ecosystem to offer distinctions from Atlanta. This may be through fostering sector-specific hubs that specialize in industries the Atlanta metro does not have, or by simply embracing the idea that their city “will never become another Atlanta” (Savannah-1) and so should stop trying to mimic the core ecosystem. Given the draw of the metropolis’ Fortune 500 companies and its larger consumer and investor base, there was a sense among the ESO leaders in periphery ecosystems must diversify and make their portfolios and identity more unique to compete with the state’s core.
Competition may not even be the optimal goal, as some interviewees highlighted the need for coexisting and cooperating in mutually beneficial ways. For example, one respondent in Atlanta said that they enjoy traveling to and working in Athens, as the University of Georgia’s entrepreneurship programming makes the city a more open ecosystem than the more closed and connection-based Atlanta (Atlanta-16). Another ESO leader in Augusta noted that trying to become the next Silicon Valley can lead ESOs to stray from identifying and emphasizing their areas’ preexisting strengths (Augusta-4). Conversely, and overall, ESO leaders noted that the ecosystem formation in their areas was far less organic than they perceived it to be in Atlanta, where a mass of talent and connections reduces barriers to collaborative entrepreneurship support. This is perception, though, and the evolution of Atlanta’s ecosystem has certainly involved a host of actors, policies and institutions. Still, among the periphery intermediaries there was noted a need to more intentionally and creatively develop entrepreneurial support resources and clientele. At the end of the day, as one respondent said, there are political benefits to having founders and resources stay local, but there are also practical necessities that companies face when weighing the option to relocate to the Atlanta metro.
The challenge of gaining legitimacy in periphery ecosystems
One interviewee noted that periphery ecosystem ESOs often fall victim to a lack of opportunities for investment from entities outside of the state. For instance, when outside investors visit Georgia, they may only travel to and visit with founders and ESOs in Atlanta, which hinders both the ability for non-Atlanta founders to meet with important financial resources and for their areas’ ESOs to grow the local ecosystem without outside assistance. “If I’m sending investors out, they’re going to want to go to Atlanta and talk to 50 companies instead of going to Athens and talking to five. There is the need to create a place that fosters that density so that investors can say ‘there’s something happening there, this isn’t a waste of my time.’” (Athens-2)
Even regarding investment sources within the state, convincing investors to put money in firms outside of Atlanta was noted to be challenging, requiring dedicated efforts by ESO governance actors to convince funders to visit the smaller ecosystem. “I took an investor from Atlanta on a trip to another community in Georgia and asked them, would you invest in a company in this community? And they said no way. At the end of our three-day conference, he was like, you know what, I would invest in a company here, but I would have a one-year period where I'm saying you're going to hit these metrics, and if not, I'm making the move to Atlanta. In 72 hours, I went from hard no to maybe. That’s a win.” (Georgia-1)
One respondent noted that the uncertain resources in the periphery ecosystem dissuade founders from moving themselves and their families to a place that lacks a soft-landing if a venture fails (Athens-4). This respondent offered that better transportation connections between the two cities may help in not only connecting their entrepreneurial ecosystems, but also in offering more options to founders, who may prefer the quality of life associated with smaller cities near rural areas. This highlights how not only entrepreneurial resources but also a lack of infrastructure can hinder connections between ecosystems in one state.
Taken together, these interviews outside of the dominant ecosystem illustrate that ESO governance actors take a potentially even more external view of their role in trying to intermediate resources and networks to local startups in their ecosystem than their counterparts in the Atlanta region. While the Atlanta governance actors are concerned with coordinating across an increasingly complex ecosystem landscape, governance actors in smaller regions are actively navigating perceptions of how their ecosystem is doing in comparison to the core, and how they can improve the support environment for startups to keep them local. Coordination within does not emerge as a major topic for these ESO leaders, likely because they do not have the critical mass making such coordination necessary. While Atlanta governance actors are coordinating coordinators, small ecosystem governance actors are more granularly coordinating assets, resources, and networks to help firms and the region overcome structural barriers.
Summary of core-periphery perspectives from periphery governance actors.
Discussion and policy implications
In this paper we ask whether and how ESOs act as ecosystem governance actors within and between ecosystems in one US state. In our setting, the state exhibits one core ecosystem and multiple smaller, periphery ecosystems. This is a common pattern in many US states, though other more diffuse ecosystems patterns also exist. ESOs are common elements of any entrepreneurial ecosystem framework, but their role as governance actors is only beginning to be more strongly considered. By virtue of engaging multiple entrepreneurs, mentors, and educators to service firms they tend to grow networks across the ecosystem. These groups act as the conduit between founders trying to get their ventures off the ground and established markets and networks. Our results indicate they often also play an outsized role in the local ecosystem as coordinating and norm-setting institutions, guiding relational and resource dynamics between the periphery and core. In this section we consider our results in terms of the contributions made to ecosystems and ecosystem governance literatures and offer implications for policy and practice.
We advance the entrepreneurial ecosystems and regional development literatures (Malecki, 2018; Spigel, 2017, 2022; Stam and Van de Ven, 2021) by analyzing a case region that has multiple, interrelated ecosystems within it. Despite the geographic proximity, our interviews and descriptive data highlight major differences in the size and composition of the ecosystems. We apply the canonical core-periphery development model to our context and consider the ways these core and periphery ecosystems experience ecosystem governance both within and between ecosystems. We find local coordination a much more urgent consideration within the Atlanta ecosystem for its ESO governance actors compared to periphery ecosystems where there are simply not as many actors to coordinate. This suggests, though, that periphery ecosystems have an advantage in their slower growth in that governance actors may be able to more concertedly build networks and norms based on the growing body of knowledge on effective ecosystem practices.
In this way we also contribute to the ecosystem governance literature (Colombo et al., 2019; Nave et al., 2025), as we advance knowledge about how ESOs and their leadership operate as governance actors within both the core and periphery ecosystems. Our results highlight that within ecosystem governance is a central concern for both core (Atlanta) and periphery (small town) ecosystems, but in the case of three of the periphery ecosystems (Augusta, Savannah, and Athens) these governance concerns extend to how the local ecosystem relates to the core Atlanta ecosystem. These governance issues center on how the ESOs can better position their local startups to be successful in the periphery ecosystem when the core ecosystem is better resourced. Interestingly, the Macon and Columbus interviews did not naturally move to a discussion on core-periphery relationships. This should be considered with respect to the data on population and business change in Table 1. Table 1 shows Macon and Columbus lagging behind the other periphery regions in terms of relative growth and their ecosystems would also be considered the most nascent and sparse.
Our findings suggest several implications for policy and practice. First, ESO governance actors need to have a deep understanding of their region and feel supported by the public sector to act as governance actors. For example, governance actors in the complex Atlanta region need to understand where there are under-resourced, siloed, sub-ecosystems, and work toward meaningful collaboration. Efforts are underway to connect sub-ecosystems in the Atlanta ecosystem, such as through the Atlanta Colleges and Universities Entrepreneurship Consortium. However, this effort is focused on connecting academia.
The Georgia Department of Economic Development has already launched initiatives to try to bridge ecosystem governance actors like ESOs across the entire state, to both share resources instead of duplicating services and to create a regional multiplier effect that benefits the underserved areas outside of the Atlanta metro. In fact, the answers provided by our interviewees make it clear that there is an opportunity for impact-minded policy entrepreneurs, such as program managers, to identify gaps in relationships between institutions and actors and foster new solutions. One example is the Partnership for Innovation (PIN), a public-private group in Georgia focused on advancing innovative entrepreneurship in urban centers and rural areas. The group recently held a state- and region-wide virtual summit that brought together ecosystem leaders, innovators, and other interested parties “focused on advancing technology, talent, and community collaboration” (O’Connor, 2025).
Second, for broader regions under which multiple ecosystems may be embedded, there may be opportunities for mutually beneficial collaboration among regions to overcome structural barriers. While state-level economic developers and the longstanding ATDC are helping to coordinate technology-based entrepreneurial support across the state, Georgia can also learn from other states in the Sunbelt that have prioritized cross-regional collaboration with regard to entrepreneurial support, such as NCGrowth in North Carolina and the Texas Scale-Up Coalition (Texas Association of Business, 2024; Wang et al., 2024). In these examples, the unit of analysis is different from that of the case of Georgia which has hubs of activity around the state, as the defined ecosystems these initiatives support are statewide. Their definition of economic success is one of the entire state attracting scalable and high-growth businesses, all while leveraging the more specific regional resources of smaller ecosystems. Future research should investigate public-sector state-level leadership as an ecosystem governance actor.
Lastly, from a governance and economic development perspective, local policymakers may find entrepreneurship a useful venue to promote regional strengths to further build and diversify their local economies. This could be done over a variety of scales, from ecosystems centered on small jurisdictions (such as neighborhoods and cities) to broad cross-border regions. In the context studied here, a goal for those leading Georgia ESOs outside of the Atlanta ecosystem may be to incentivize greater movement of mentors from Atlanta and elsewhere in the South into these regions for pitches, competitions, and short programs. Such a strategy would proactively help these less well-resourced ecosystems. Broader placemaking efforts, especially at a time when demand for rural lifestyles is increasing, would help improve the local labor pool and prevent brain drain as well.
Concluding remarks
We consider the governance roles of ESOs within and between core and periphery entrepreneurial ecosystems in one US state. Our results highlight the ways in which entrepreneurial ecosystems develop and relate to each other through their intermediaries as governance actors across an uneven geography of entrepreneurial activity. We find the core ecosystem of Atlanta Georgia shapes the strategic outlook of periphery ecosystems, due to its dominance in terms of resources, support, and labor talent. Governance in the core by ESO leaders looks different than in the periphery, as the core actors must navigate complex and sometimes entrenched interests and norms, which can lead to siloing effects within the ecosystem. Governance in the periphery looks for discerning ways to differentiate the smaller ecosystem’s value and to overcome structural barriers. In this way, periphery ESOs successfully identify the role they play as ecosystem governance actors but face critical challenges. While our study focuses on one state, it still provides generalizable takeaways for other economic regions containing multiple, interrelated ecosystems. Further research should continue the investigation of how ESOs act as governance actors, and how multiple ecosystems may effectively coordinate both between and within to achieve productive entrepreneurship and greater societal benefit from entrepreneurship.
Footnotes
Acknowledgments
We thank participants at the 2024 Association for Public Policy and Management Annual Conference for helpful feedback. We also thank Colin Delargy, Bianca Mers, Angela Praseuth, and Trevor Butler for interview and data collection assistance. Finally, we thank the many individuals who volunteered their time to take part in our interviews.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Georgia Department of Economic Development, Partnership for Innovation (Georgia). All conclusions and views are those of the authors only and do not necessarily represent those of the funders.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.