The Relationship between Entrepreneurial Ecosystems and Digital Transformation

Abstract

Given the growing importance of digital transformation, on the one hand, and the recognized importance of Entrepreneurial Ecosystems (EE) on the other, we find that these are two fragmented fields in the literature and that they lack a systematization of the literature. Our research aims to develop a systematic literature review, in which we will study the relationship between entrepreneurial ecosystems and digital transformation, at the micro, meso and macro levels. For this, we used the Web of Science to collect our database, and we analysed 73 articles that were included in our study for their purpose. In our analysis, we were able to identify the characteristics of the environments of entrepreneurial ecosystems, the actions of digital technology approaches to digital transformation and the necessary skills in the scenario of entrepreneurship. Thus, we proposed a conceptual model with the presentation of the relationship between entrepreneurial ecosystems and digital transformation, which may be useful in future studies. The greatest contribution of our investigation is the offer of this systematization to this field of study, allowing us to see the different paths of investigation.

Keywords

Digital transformation entrepreneurial ecosystem systematic literature review conceptual model

Introduction

In the digital economy, defined by the dissemination of information, commercial content on the internet and relationships through social networks are the entrepreneurial ecosystems, which consist of active institutions and articulations for economic performance (Kehinde et al., 2022; Mas & Gómez, 2021). It is a scenario of spatial structure organized by relationships between economic entities, which includes technologies, products, trade, creation and use of information (Sokolov et al., 2021).

The entrepreneurial ecosystem is compared to the natural ecosystem; simultaneously, the latter needs propitious means for reproduction, while the former needs resources present in different and interactive environments. Madichie et al. (2021) highlight the importance of partnerships between the actors of the different environments of entrepreneurial ecosystems as a critical condition to ensure positive benefits to stakeholders. It involves revolutionizing sectors by impacting business models and driving global development (Denicolai & Previtali, 2020). The contrast to this scenario is entrepreneurial organizations that often fail to achieve financial viability due to the initial design of the business model and the inability to evolve over time (Khuntia et al., 2017). This conjuncture may be due to the findings of Pereira et al. (2022), where many managers are still unaware of technological concepts and use in the operating environment. Thus, the digital era, by bringing as a critical factor the learning capacity and adaptation (Gianluca et al., 2020; Khan et al., 2022; Morris & König, 2021), stimulates the development of digital capabilities, a challenge for certain organizations in view of the formation of their identity (Keller et al., 2022; Narula et al., 2021; Zhang et al., 2022a, 2022b). In this context, digital transformation acts for the entrepreneurial ecosystems as a disruption tool by driving innovation using new business models and integrating digital technologies into the organizational processes. The conception of technology in entrepreneurial ecosystems escapes the specificity and is relational, as a process of practical and technological arrangements (Bejjani et al., 2023; Lanamäki et al., 2020), which promote opportunities, risks and competitive advantages (Proskurnina et al., 2021; Ramadani et al., 2022). That is why Garcez et al. (2022a, 2022b) state that in the changes in the process of interaction between organizations and the actors involved, digital transformation is relevant, especially in entrepreneurship. Digital transformation affects socioeconomic systems with changes in business processes, resource demand, communication in entrepreneurial activities (Satalkina & Steiner, 2020), knowledge exchanges and objectives and values integration.

When analysing the literature, we observe the rise in the development of reviews that portray individually and specifically the elements of this interaction, such as innovation, technologies, business models, entrepreneurship and digitalization. For instance, the review by Vaska et al. (2021)looks at the development of digital transformation and the impact of technologies on business innovation. Whereas Švarc (2021) aims to provide a framework for exploring digital innovation, Strazzullo et al. (2022) seek how 4.0 technologies support open innovation, and Tarabasz et al. (2018) delve into skills for managers involving technology. In the field of entrepreneurship, we highlight two reviews by Garcez et al. (2022a, 2022b) that examine, respectively, technical skills based on digital transformation and the proposal of a framework for the link between digital transformation and entrepreneurship. Jardim (2021), meanwhile, aims to systematize entrepreneurial skills considering digital transformation, and Secundo et al. (2020) review the academic entrepreneurship literature according to the emergence of digital technologies. In this same perspective, Gorelova et al. (2021) address the interconnection between digital entrepreneurship and smart cities, and Morris and König (2021) present the purpose of arguing that the digital era marks transformations in entrepreneurship. In turn, De Bernardi et al. (2021) intend the comparative network analysis of the conceptual framework of social entrepreneurship at academic and non-academic levels. In the context of business models, Trischler and Li-Ying’s (2022) review aims to outline the basis of the digital business model concept attributes, and Soltysova and Modrak (2020) intend to categorize business models based on the sharing economy with the help of literature. In the aspect of digitalization, Ferraro and Cristiano (2021) explore evolutionary scenarios of family businesses in the age of digitalization and Haefner and Sternberg (2020) aim to focus on the implications of digitalization on economic geography. Thus, even in the face of the inseparability between the entrepreneurial ecosystem and digital transformation, no literature review addresses the direct relationship between these components. In this regard, and as advocated by O’Kane et al. (2021), an EE is composed of several layers that coexist and evolve simultaneously; Theodoraki and Messeghem (2017) use the macro level to describe the EE, the meso level to describe the ecosystem supporting entrepreneurship and the micro level to describe the business incubator. From these considerations, we infer that there may be several models of EE, depending precisely on the characteristics of the environment where each ecosystem is inserted. Thus, this study aims to conduct a systematic literature review (SLR), identifying more comprehensively the relationship between entrepreneurial ecosystems and digital transformation at micro, meso and macro levels, based on the definition of Theodoraki and Messeghem (2017).

The contributions of this study in academic terms lie in presenting characteristics, behaviours and competencies related to the actors of the entrepreneurial ecosystem to optimize the use of the digital transformation and the organizational results (Alomar, 2023). In the organizational sense, it contributes so that managers can identify necessary skills and facilitating tools related to digital technology, which leads to improvements in production, communication, activity flows and internal and external relationships of the organization. In the social aspect, this awakens the importance of interactions between society’s actors, which translates into benefits regarding cost reduction, well-being and growth at a collective level.

Methodology

To achieve the objective of this review, the procedures were used according to Kraus et al (2022), which involve research question and protocol, inclusion and exclusion criteria, research strategies and selection, article evaluation, data extraction and synthesis, and dissemination of results.

Planning the Review

To identify, evaluate, interpret and synthesize the results on the influence of digital transformation in entrepreneurial ecosystems, the SLR was the approach used to conduct this study (Rana et al., 2022). For Siddaway et al. (2019), the SLR matches an investigation of systematic and predefined methods to identify the relevant documents on a topic, being the articles evaluated, the data extracted and the results summarized, which allows a reliable review through planned steps according to an established protocol. Available WEB sources were used through a process that involved searches formed by keywords in an indexed electronic base, being considered the strings (preferably found in titles, abstracts and keywords) and the inclusion and exclusion criteria for the acceptance and rejection of articles. The selection of the articles presented the stages of reading the titles, analysis of the abstracts and, if considered relevant, the selection of the work for reading in full. After reading in full, a data extraction form was developed with the information: bibliographic data, abstracts and a summary of the articles, for understanding and conclusions about the study. The Web of Science TM Core Collection database was used for selecting sources, as it presents a significant number of titles and thus provides a comprehensive scenario of the research production (Hu et al., 2019). In this database, we chose the document type articles, review articles and early access articles; the English language and no limitation regarding subarea, journal and year.

To identify relevant studies, research was developed using the following expressions present in the title, abstract or keywords: Refined by: ‘digital transformation’ (Topic) and ‘entrepreneur*’ (Topic) and ‘*system*’ in October 2022.

When conducting the choice of articles, the inclusion criteria established were the studies that addressed entrepreneurial ecosystems and their relationship with digital transformation. The exclusion criterion for reading the documents that we have in the database was due to the fact that its objective does not respond to the relationship that we intend to systematize, entrepreneurial ecosystems and digital transformation, thus 73 articles were found. The search triage is illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1.

Data Selection Process.

As per Table 1, the articles included in this study present a total of 200 authors, of which 7 articles were published by one author and 66 articles as part of a co-authorship.

Table 1.

Summary of the Articles Included in the Study.

Description	Results
Documents	73
Sources (magazines, books, etc.)	52
Keywords plus (ID)	434
Author’s keywords (DE)	436
Period	2017–2022
The average number of citations per document	75.3
Authors	200
Authors of single-author documents	7
Authors of multi-author documents	66
Authors by document	2,7

Method

To understand the relationship between entrepreneurial ecosystems and digital transformation, the SLR methodology is used. During the systematic review, an inductive ontological analysis of articles is used. Greenhalgh (1997) argued that an SLR is an overview of the main studies containing an explicit statement of objectives, materials and methods that were conducted according to an explicit and reproducible methodology. To perform this method, we followed the protocols suggested by Thorpe et al. (2005) and Tranfield et al. (2003). In the ontological analysis, we followed the methods of Andreini et al. (2019) and Jones et al. (2011). This analysis is obtained by inductively reading and rereading the articles while interacting with them in cycles to identify and categorize concordant themes that ensure consistency within and between the categories of these themes (Andreini et al., 2019; Jones et al., 2011). We limited the review to articles published in peer-review journals because they are a validated source of knowledge and have a strong impact on the research field (Ordanini et al., 2008). To identify the articles, we applied three search strategies whose objective was to be able to increase the number of papers. The final database was composed of 73 articles. Based on the SLR and ontological analysis of the 73 selected articles, they were grouped using two criteria. First, we distinguished the papers based on whether the main focus of the empirical research was the relationship between entrepreneurial ecosystems and digital transformation or whether they were SLRs. Second, we categorized the papers based on their level of analysis, distinguished by micro, meso and macro levels.

As already mentioned, in this SLR, we used mixed methods and created a mapping structure that includes different but aggregated levels: micro (composed of studies that address the entrepreneur and his/her business), meso (composed of studies that investigate about agents of change for entrepreneurship, such as universities, innovation centres and technology parks) and macro (composed of studies about governments, investors and associations that support entrepreneurship). At the micro level, we find the entrepreneurial ecosystem environment with business developers who must present the profiles of bravery, determination, overcoming and focus on management capacity. The meso level comprises the entrepreneurial ecosystem environment formed by a relationship that encompasses qualified people, partnerships and development. The entrepreneurial ecosystem environment and the external conditions that encourage entrepreneurship at the macro level, such as quality of life, local infrastructure, public policies, and fiscal and tax incentives.

Results

This part of the review is structured in a descriptive analysis, with the characteristics of the articles included in this study, followed by a content analysis, which allowed the identification of clusters, the designation of themes and the development of a textual structure.

Descriptive Analysis

According to Figure 2, from the year 2020, the theme presented a significant evolution in the number of publications and citations, with a total of 66 articles and 5,152 citations, representing about 90% of the studies in the analysis and 94% of all citations.

Figure 2.

Number of Articles and Citations Per Year.

Table 2 shows 10 articles with the highest number of citations. Two articles present the same and a higher number of citations (152), published in 2021 and authored by Sternberg (2021) and De Bernardi et al. (2021). The other most cited studies are Ritala et al. (2021) (146 citations), Jardim (2021) (131 citations), Satalkina and Steiner (2020) (126 citations), Trischler and Li-Ying (2022) (123 citations) and Soluk and Kammerlander (2021) (120 citations).

Table 2.

Top 10 Articles with the Highest Number of Citations.

Articles	A Quote From
Sternberg (2021)	152
De Bernardi et al. (2021)	152
Ritala et al. (2021)	146
Jardim (2021)	131
Satalkina and Steiner (2020)	126
Trischler and Li-Ying (2022)	123
Soluk and Kammerlander (2021)	120
Dressler and Paunovic (2020)	120
Haefner and Sternberg (2020)	120
Castagna et al. (2020)	114

According to Table 3, to structure the study on entrepreneurial ecosystems, articles were organized according to the countries in which they were developed. The country with the largest number of publications is Italy (16 articles), followed by Germany (11 articles), England (9 articles), Russia (7 articles) and the USA (6 articles).

Table 3.

List of Countries with the Most Articles.

Countries	Articles
Italy	16
Germany	11
England	9
Russia	7
USA	6
Austria	5
China	4
Portugal	4
Canada	3
Denmark	3

Content Analysis

For the development of this analysis, 73 articles were used, with a total of 5,497 cited references. According to the analysis, a total of three clusters are observed, grouped by authors, according to the study objective (Table 4), which allowed the identification of differences and aspects and favoured the following designations: (a) the macro-environment of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, (b) the meso-environment of the entrepreneurial ecosystem and (c) the micro-environment of the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Table 4.

Content Analysis Clusters.

References	Clusters
Candelo et al. (2022), Castagna et al. (2020), Cennamo et al. (2020), Devlin and Coaffee (2021), Di Giulio and Vecchi (2023), Dressler and Paunovic (2020), Garzoni et al. (2020), Gorelova et al. (2021), Gupta and Bose (2022), Haefner and Sternberg (2020), Heng et al. (2022), Hinings et al. (2018), Keller et al. (2022), Kraus and Marchenko (2021), Madichie et al. (2021), Markova et al. (2021), Mas and Gómez (2021), Proskurnina et al. (2021), Rossi et al. (2020), Satalkina and Steiner (2020), Shtal et al. (2021), Sobczak (2021), Sokolov et al. (2021), Song et al. (2022), Sternberg (2021), Strazzullo et al. (2022), Szalavetz (2020), Tekic and Koroteev (2019), Valdez-De-Leon (2019), Vasilev et al. (2020), Vaska et al. (2021)	Cluster 1 (n = 33) The macro-environment of the entrepreneurial ecosystem
Androutsos and Brinia (2019), Bikse et al. (2022), De Bernardi et al. (2021), Egorova et al. (2021), Endres et al. (2022), Garcez et al. (2022a, 2022b), Holmström et al. (2021), Katsamakas and Pavlov (2022), Katsamakas et al. (2022), Khuntia et al. (2017), Lanamäki et al. (2020), Lian (2021), Popov and Semyachkov (2022), Reibenspiess et al. (2022), Soltysova and Modrak (2020), Stolze and Sailer (2021), Xie et al. (2021), Yildirim and Tuncalp (2021)	Cluster 2 (n = 18) The meso-environment of the entrepreneurial ecosystem
Burton-Jones et al. (2020), Denicolai and Previtali (2020), Ferraro and Cristiano (2021), Garcez et al. (2022a, 2022b), Gfrerer et al. (2021), Giacosa et al. (2022), Haftor and Climent (2021), Jardim (2021), Kosterich (2021), Lin et al. (2020), Liu et al. (2022), Machleid et al. (2020), Magesa and Jonathan (2021), Morris and König (2021), Pelletier and Cloutier (2019), Pereira et al. (2022), Ritala et al. (2021), Secundo et al. (2020), Soluk and Kammerlander (2021), Švarc (2021), Tarabasz et al. (2018), Zhang et al. (2022a, 2022b)	Cluster 3 (n = 22) The micro-environment of the entrepreneurial ecosystem

Cluster 1. Macro-environment of Entrepreneurial Ecosystem (n = 33)

In the dynamic organizational context, which requires an innovative orientation in business (Shtal et al., 2021), the entrepreneurial ecosystem acts for innovation and growth. It is a network that includes the creative sector, telecommunication services, e-business, remote services and the like (Sokolov et al., 2021). One notices a set of institutions that play an active role in the rules defined in the industry, in the social ecosystem and in articulating policies for the generation of work (Mas & Gómez, 2021). Thus, industries worldwide have been impacted by the remarkable transformation in processes, roles and interactions (Cennamo et al., 2020). The elements of these interactions include investors, associations and governments, and actors in the macro-environment of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, for the promotion of entrepreneurship through security, infrastructure, policies and incentives. Against this background, government policy has recently paid much more attention to entrepreneurship than in the past, for example, related to the entrepreneurial ecosystem approach (Sternberg, 2021). Government initiatives aim to improve the engagement between various actors in the planning system, such as urban, local authorities and central government, with technology startups and digital entrepreneurs (Devlin & Coaffee, 2021). Government policies suitable for digital process management contribute to the role of digital transformation in socioeconomic relations and organizations (Vasilev et al., 2020). However, the need to create winning coalitions in public policy can undermine the absorptive capacity required by the government to engage entrepreneurial ecosystems (Di Giulio & Vecchi, 2023). Thus, it can be seen that digital entrepreneurship can be influenced by institutional and digital infrastructures and building blocks (Hinings et al., 2018). By stimulating changes in the innovation system, digital technology can offer new business opportunities, be disruptive and cause vulnerabilities (Satalkina & Steiner, 2020). Being disruptive contributes to the digital revolution, impacting the economic system and organizational competitiveness (Rossi et al., 2020). Vulnerability is associated with threats to established business models (Dressler & Paunovic, 2020; Gupta & Bose, 2022), funding and innovation infrastructure (Kraus & Marchenko, 2021) and challenges to accelerating digital entrepreneurship in countries (Madichie et al., 2021). Thus, side effects occur in the social system, in the competitiveness capacity and in the innovation viability, which determines digital entrepreneurship as a result of the organizational activity (Satalkina & Steiner, 2020). It is observed a digital organizational ecosystem with effective entrepreneurial activities (Gorelova et al., 2021) and with digital technologies that promote digital collaboration (Garzoni et al., 2020) and lead to new forms of value creation (Valdez-De-Leon, 2019). Such technologies, such as platforms, shared ecosystems and enablers, fragment digital transformation and impact organizational value creation and delivery (Vaska et al., 2021). The effect is driving the redefinition of strategies, which results in changes in the value chain, relationships in digital markets (Cennamo et al., 2020) and the functioning of individual entities and industries (Sobczak, 2021). Thus, the role of actors such as entrepreneur support institutions, funding agencies and the government is to create opportunities for digital transformation to promote results by maximizing strengths and neutralizing organizational barriers to the creation, improvement and use of technologies. In this respect, in the macro-environment of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, facilitating mechanisms are stimulated so that, according to Szalavetz (2020), digital transformation produces opportunities in economies by progressing towards the globalization of research and development, entrepreneurial integration and collaboration of ecosystem-type innovation. Thus, the development of strategies for digital transformation leads to new business models, with channels for customer support, connections of management systems (Proskurnina et al., 2021) and entrepreneurial initiatives (Keller et al., 2022), which differ in risks and challenges (Tekic & Koroteev, 2019). From this perspective, encouraging artificial intelligence–related technologies stimulates the country’s economic growth and becomes influential in determining policies promoting global development (Heng et al., 2022). Supporting technologies enable a global connection among consumers, employees (Strazzullo et al., 2022) and organizations operating in creative industries in knowledge management, as opposed to traditional technologies that hinder agile responses to change (Castagna et al., 2020). In this environment, the digitalization of physical assets transforms economic spaces (Haefner & Sternberg, 2020) by creating innovative business management for interaction ecosystems (Shtal et al., 2021), so it is on the agenda of countries that aim for digital improvements for the reduction of inequalities (Haefner & Sternberg, 2020). In digitalization, emphasis is placed on advanced information and production technologies, such as cloud services, mobile devices, virtual reality, the internet of things, geolocalization, 3D printing and robotics (Markova et al., 2021). Information technologies transform the business models of different economic activities and increase competitive advantages by transforming and updating the organizational ecosystem (Song et al., 2022). In this context, when the relationships among stakeholders are based on trust, engagement and empowerment, it facilitates the digital transformation in relational models of communal sharing (Candelo et al., 2022).

Cluster 2. Meso-environment of Entrepreneurial Ecosystem (n = 18)

In the meso-environment are the universities, the innovation centres, the research centres, the startups and market components, in a relationship that encompasses qualified people, partnerships and knowledge. In this scenario, universities are economic development catalysts and produce organizational capital through digital transformation with collaborative networks and co-creation processes (Stolze & Sailer, 2021). Therefore, Popov and Semyachkov (2022) state that the entrepreneurial ecosystem functions as an element of economic and social development analysis by involving value creation and digital transformation. In this aspect, educational institutions have been changing the way of knowledge acquisition with changes in the teaching–learning interaction (Garcez et al., 2022a, 2022b) and through partnerships to stimulate co-creative and innovative skills (Androutsos & Brinia, 2019). Cooperation between universities and entrepreneurs promotes employability with transformation in business, investments in human capital (Bikse et al., 2022) and aggregation of new knowledge (Holmström et al., 2021). It thus represents the era of digital transformation, with the development of new products (Endres et al., 2022), with a service perspective that comprises tangibility and empathy (Lian, 2021) and with associations, such as between universities and organizations (Yildirim & Tuncalp, 2021). In this panorama, actions such as the sharing economy, stimulated by startups and digital platforms, are towards the digital literacy of generations, promoting cost-reduction and sustainable practices (Soltysova & Modrak, 2020). Approaches such as digital platforms act in projecting intrapreneurial behaviours (Reibenspiess et al., 2022), evaluating public procurement (Egorova et al., 2021), maximizing profits and creating social value (Katsamakas et al., 2022). Multifaceted digital platforms are enablers of digital transformation through information exchanges, that is, an organizational form of digital data sharing (Khuntia et al., 2017). In this performance sphere, there are innovations in wireless technologies that enable business value creation (Katsamakas & Pavlov, 2022) and social media for accumulating social capital and support in the development of the performance sector (Xie et al., 2021). In this context, social entrepreneurship comes to the fore because it can leverage organizational processes to achieve social value and ensure profits (De Bernardi et al., 2021). In this way, digital transformation offers organizations opportunities to engage intrapreneurs, that is, employees who innovate through idea generation (Reibenspiess et al., 2022), in a general technology category rather than a specific one enacted in a time and place (Lanamäki et al., 2020).

Cluster 3. Micro-environment of Entrepreneurial Ecosystem (n = 22)

In the micro-environment, one observes the business and the entrepreneur. In this, there is the need to develop economically viable offers (Haftor & Climent, 2021) and a set of skills to face the challenges of roles in the digital world (Tarabasz et al., 2018). Thus, the inspirational and visionary role becomes necessary for the promotion of innovation (Magesa & Jonathan, 2021); the adventurous spirit, for impacts on organizational performance (Liu et al., 2022) and the dynamic capability, for the re-evaluation of strategies (Lin et al., 2020). In the context of organizational strategies, the use of proactivity, relational capital and target achievement performance is essential for the entrepreneur (Ritala et al., 2021). In such a scenario, organizations are supported by an ecosystem immersed in digital transformation, promoting access to free IT applications, which demand support (Pelletier & Cloutier, 2019). Thus, the combination of self-directed and experiential learning supports the adaptability for entrepreneurial competence (Morris & König, 2021). Digital literacy and skills, through courses covering data management, ethics and entrepreneurship, should become requirements for professionals to leverage the potential of digital technologies (Machleid et al., 2020). This encompasses a digital mindset (Giacosa et al., 2022), with clear communication, resilience and self-efficacy (Gugnani, 2022; Jardim, 2021). While there are similar perceptions of attitude and empowerment towards change, perceptions of individual readiness, competencies and barriers to innovation differ (Gfrerer et al., 2021). To this end, digital technology functions as a transformer of the business environment by stimulating education, skills (Secundo et al., 2020), outcomes and coordination of activities (Machleid et al., 2020) and by altering organizations culturally, socially and technically (Garcez et al., 2022a, 2022b). The niche structure of types of organizations, such as micro and small enterprises small and medium entreprises, is influenced by technology, resource, demand and network factors (Zhang et al., 2022a, 2022b). In this landscape, digital transformation, by involving large investments, potential consequences (Burton-Jones et al., 2020) and the digitization of processes, products and business models, requires the need for dynamic capabilities to accelerate the advancement of innovation (Soluk & Kammerlander, 2021). However, the concept of innovation faces contemporary crises in adapting to socioeconomic conditions, with the rise of the digital economy requiring reconsideration (Švarc, 2021). To meet demands, organizations seek to use digital tools to facilitate business internationalization (Pereira et al., 2022) and require a dynamic business assessment process (Ferraro & Cristiano, 2021). Thus, entrepreneurs promote changes and restructure their area’s professional frontiers (Kosterich, 2021) in a context involving new forms of entrepreneurial ecosystems (Denicolai & Previtali, 2020).

Conceptual Framework

Figure 3 represents the conceptual model of the relationship between entrepreneurial ecosystems and digital transformation. It is a network interaction triggered by technologies that digitally transform entrepreneurial ecosystems in economic, social and technical terms. In this relationship of mutual influences, the entrepreneurial ecosystem environments—micro, meso and macro—are observed with types of actors. These act as business developers and agents of change through the development of human capital and technologies to drive competitiveness at the organizational level, new business models, digitalization, partnerships for knowledge exchange and cost reduction. In the global context, economic growth and digital entrepreneurship are stimulated through incentives, policies, regulations and investments.

Figure 3.

Conceptual Model for the Relationship between Entrepreneurial Ecosystems and Digital Transformation.

Discussion

Through content analysis, different interactions between entrepreneurial ecosystem players were identified. In this system, a connection is developed that covers functionalities, necessary profiles and facilitating tools related to digital technologies to comply with the new innovation perspective and achieve economic development at an organizational and global level. The development of the textual body of research led to the deepening of the relationship between entrepreneurial ecosystems and digital transformation, being observed in distinct environments, which present agents that mutually influence each other through competencies and peculiarities, in a cause-and-effect relationship, which leads to the perception of the multidisciplinarity of the theme studied in this review. Thus, the comprehensiveness of aspects observed in the analysed articles evidences the evolution in the findings on entrepreneurial ecosystems and digital transformation and gaps that need to be filled through future research.

We believe that from our systematic review emerged a wealth of trends and patterns of entrepreneurial ecosystems and their relationship with digital transformation, both at the level of the general field and at the level of different subfields, characterized by levels: micro, meso and macro. In this section, we explain what is most pertinent to these trends and patterns, before we develop a forward-looking research agenda.

Overarching Trends and Patterns

Based on the research organizational structure of entrepreneurial ecosystems and digital transformation presented in the planning section of the review, an encouraging finding is that we were able to identify research packages that can be identified to fill each domain of the structure. There is significant progress made in a short space of time, and an impressive portfolio of contributions has been developed at various levels of analysis. At the same time, it is clear that while some areas have become heavily researched, blind spots remain. The relationship between entrepreneurial ecosystems and digital transformation is met in this study, and it is the first theoretical systematization. Although research on the characteristics of entrepreneurial ecosystems has already been widely studied (Garcez et al., 2022a, 2022b; Gorelova et al., 2021; Jardim, 2021), the study of their relationship with digital transformation, considering the three main levels of analysis (micro, meso and macro), remains poorly studied.

Crucially, the bibliometric methods applied in our study allow us to discover the relational nature of knowledge creation in the field of entrepreneurial ecosystems and digital transformation. An ingrained characteristic in the investigation of entrepreneurial ecosystems is its multidisciplinary nature, encompassing several disciplinary boundaries. It is therefore not surprising that the field of research is somewhat heterogeneous, with multiple subfields emerging, each with distinct characteristics and trajectories. For example, our bibliometric analysis showed that different entrepreneurial ecosystems research groups emphasized different parts of our organizational structure (micro, meso and macro). That is separate research trajectories formed around key ideas developed in different sets of articles and continue to shape distinct trajectories within the entrepreneurial ecosystems literature. In this way, we verify that, although the focus of the investigations may change at the level of the relationships that are established with entrepreneurial ecosystems, even if in a discreet way, the micro, meso and macro levels are present in all investigations. Broadly speaking, research within these approaches emerges as quite diverse, exploring their considerations in many different contexts, with regard to different organizational forms, at different analytical levels, and emphasizing different aspects of the entrepreneurial process.

Future Research Agenda

According to several authors (Secundo et al., 2020; Soluk & Kammerlander, 2021; Tekic & Koroteev, 2019; Vaska et al., 2021), although the importance of entrepreneurial ecosystems, digital transformation and the relationship between them is widely recognized as paramount, this research area is still fragmented and poorly theorized. Thus, the need for filling the gaps as per below is perceived.

Research into the Macro-environment of Entrepreneurial Ecosystems

In the macro-environment of entrepreneurial ecosystems, the influence of governmental actions with incentives and policies is observed. Thus, research that portrays the types of partnerships between governments and organizations for financial investments and potential influences on society becomes necessary (Shtal et al., 2021; Sokolov et al., 2021). The primordiality of studies identifying the characteristics of government policies that stimulate and discourage entrepreneurial activities at the organizational level is also evident. In support of financing institutions, as a point of emphasis for future studies, the barriers encountered by entrepreneurs in obtaining capital with the purpose of starting a new business are observed (Cennamo et al., 2020; Mas & Gómez, 2021).

Research in the Meso-environment of Entrepreneurial Ecosystems

In the meso-environment constituted by the agents of innovation change, the need for studies that show the difficulties of universities in the teaching–learning relationship, that is, the development of human capital to stimulate entrepreneurship through the development of profiles and digital technologies is observed (Garcez et al., 2022a, 2022b; Popov & Semyachkov, 2022; Stolze & Sailer, 2021). The importance of research addressing governmental dysfunctionalities in supporting university education in promoting digital entrepreneurship in organizations is noted in the relationship between government, universities and organizations. Within the field of action of developers, such as incubators, one notices the significance of research that identifies factors that hinder the strengthening of organizations on the market as a stimulus for realizing good ideas and business plans (Androutsos & Brinia, 2019; Bikse et al., 2022; Holmström et al., 2021).

Research in the Micro-environment of Entrepreneurial Ecosystems

Given the main figures of the micro-environment of entrepreneurial ecosystems, the business and the entrepreneur, one notes the relevance of research that lists the positive and negative points of government support for entrepreneurs concerning developing and implementing new business models. Besides the governmental sphere, the academic sphere has presented support to entrepreneurs through a considerable number of research on the technical factor of digital transformation. However, this theme is obscure in relational terms, which expresses the importance of investigations that support leadership styles, behaviours and profiles to contribute to achieving results in organizations (Lin et al., 2020; Liu et al., 2022; Magesa & Jonathan, 2021).

Another significant point for studies is the relationship between the quality-of-life factor and the entrepreneur, where internal and external aspects of the business that influence health, personal growth and social interaction should be indicated. The research contexts presented here motivate the optimal use of digital technology and the effective performance of organizational members, with the creation of types of management, processes, products, services and knowledge exchanges (Pelletier & Cloutier, 2019; Ritala et al., 2021; Tarabasz et al., 2018).

Conclusion

This research, which involved descriptive and content analysis, aimed at identifying the relationship between entrepreneurial ecosystems and digital transformation. It was observed that in the digital economy scenario, the entrepreneurial ecosystem contributes to the economic development of organizations, which involves aspects such as organizational performance, government policies and support from partner institutions. These factors are related to the best use of digital transformation, a process resulting from facilitating and intelligent technologies that cause adjustments and ruptures in the most diverse contexts of society, neutralize risks, improve decision-making, develop areas, increase profits and social capital, aspects that stimulate digital entrepreneurship in organizations. Digital transformation leads to entrepreneurial activities, which include new knowledge, creativity and functional behaviours. In this context, the effects are management, process, product and service innovation; dynamic capacity; organizational agility; good partnerships; quality intra- and inter-organizational relationships; knowledge sharing and organizational co-creation. In parallel, digital transformation can show the weaknesses of an organization related to new challenges imposed by global crises and the lack of innovation viability, which drives the need for new business models. These models understand the importance of digital literacy and lead to more robust interactions between the stakeholders of organizations, which respectively encompass the use of technological structures, which optimize the exchange of digital information; the choices of objectives, tactics and management. The digital transformation environment continuously presents a new idea of what innovation is through the adoption in the entrepreneurial ecosystem of approaches that facilitate learning, use and improve the performance of digital technologies, which makes certain skills essential. In this ecosystem, among the important entrepreneurial skills are the ability to meet goals, leverage ideas, identify opportunities, and be strategic, proactive, creative, resilient and flexible. In contrast to the SLRs, we found, which mostly focus on the analysis of articles, our research aims at an integrated analysis of the three levels of ecosystems: micro, meso and macro. In this way, we seek to offer a holistic model that allows measuring the three levels of entrepreneurial ecosystems and their relationship with digital transformation. Our research brings two main contributions. First, at a methodological level, our SLR allowed us to better understand the relationships between ideas, authors and current research works and how the research field is structured. Second, at the research level of entrepreneurial ecosystems and their relationship with digital transformation, the application of SLR techniques allowed us to discover subfields within the literature and characterize them based on the micro, meso and macro levels. A systematic review was particularly helpful due to the multidisciplinary and heterogeneous nature of ecosystems. The identification of trends, patterns and trajectories at the field and subfield levels allowed us to develop a future research agenda at the level of entrepreneurial ecosystems and the relationship with digital transformation.

Not unlike other investigations, this one is not exempt from limitations. Namely, the choice of a single database was due to the small number of studies addressing the research question, which explains why around 96% of the articles included in the investigation also belong to other databases. Exclusion points were used in the configuration for the analysis development, which may have removed some studies that allowed understanding the theme. However, the techniques used allowed interpretations, understandings and directions that met the purposes of this research.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

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