Measuring entrepreneurial ecosystems across levels: a district approach
提出一种结合档案数据和创业者自报数据的区域级创业生态系统测量方法，通过分析德国巴登-符腾堡州29个区域的257位创新初创企业创始人数据，验证了生态系统要素间的可替代性逻辑并揭示了区域地理特征。
Abstract Entrepreneurial ecosystem measures should combine archival civic and self-reported entrepreneur data. This combination helps to overcome the limitations of aggregated archival data that affect our collective capacity to derive actionable insights for research and policy. Previous measurement approaches lack consistency with entrepreneurial ecosystem theory because they do not capture data at a sufficiently local level or data about entrepreneurs’ values, beliefs, and attitudes. This paper proposes a new measurement approach for EE elements at the district level (NUTS-3), facilitating comparisons of local geographic EE properties and measuring relations between entrepreneurs, new ventures, and their ecosystems. Using confirmatory factor analysis, we combine self-reported and archival data to connect the micro and macro dimensions of the entrepreneurial ecosystem phenomenon. Analyzing survey data from 257 founders of innovative startups across 29 NUTS-3 districts in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, our findings support the “substitutability logic” among ten entrepreneurial ecosystem elements and uncover district-level geographic properties. Our study offers replication possibilities, recommendations for entrepreneurs’ actions, and policy monitoring.