Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Leadership: Processes, Practices, and Contexts

Editors

• Bruno Fischer, University of Campinas
• Aki Harima, Tallinn University of Technology
• Sophia Behr, University of Stuttgart
• Philip T. Roundy, University of Tennessee Chattanooga
• Erik Stam, Utrecht University
• Maribel Guerrero, Arizona State University

Description

This special issue examines leadership within entrepreneurial ecosystems as a central yet underexplored phenomenon shaping ecosystem dynamics and outcomes. Rather than treating leadership as a residual category of individual actors or positions, the issue conceptualizes it as a relational process through which direction develops, priorities are negotiated, support is mobilized, and ecosystem development is influenced. The focus spans stable, transforming, and crisis-affected ecosystems, recognizing that contexts such as digitalization, sustainability transitions, and geopolitical disruptions shape how leadership emerges and evolves.

The special issue seeks to move beyond describing static ecosystem structures toward explaining how collective action is generated, coordinated, and sustained over time. It welcomes diverse theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches that develop, challenge, extend, or offer alternative conceptualizations of EE leadership. Research should address who assumes leadership roles, how legitimacy and followership emerge, and how different leadership configurations can compensate for weaknesses in networks, resources, or institutions.

Potential topics

• Conceptualization and theory of entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) leadership across formal, informal, individual, collective, organizational, distributed, relational, and processual perspectives
• Dimensions and manifestations of EE leadership (e.g., public, entrepreneurial, community)
• Interaction between EE leadership and other ecosystem elements such as networks, institutions, finance, or culture
• Contextual uniqueness shaping forms and theorization of EE leadership across different institutional, cultural, and geographical settings
• Elements of EE leadership affecting how entrepreneurs and supportive agents cohere around shared norms, values, and goals
• Relational characteristics (e.g., coordination, collaboration, communication) supporting effective ecosystem leadership
• Participation, legitimacy, and authority emergence in EE leadership processes
• How characteristics of ecosystem actors (lived experience, place attachment, prosocial orientation, identity) shape participation in ecosystem leadership
• Activities, practices, and processes constituting ecosystem leadership and their collective goals
• Distribution of leadership activities across ecosystem actors and how interactions shape collective direction and coordinated action
• Forms of leadership and agency emergence, evolution, and enabling coordinated action within EEs
• Evolution of ecosystem leadership across phases of development and consequences of different forms
• Conditions under which leadership can compensate for weaknesses in other ecosystem elements
• Differences in EE leadership across unstable, transforming, and crisis-affected contexts
• Direction provision under sustainability pressures, digital transformation, geopolitical tension, or resource disruption
• Negotiation of competing priorities through EE leadership during simultaneous disruptions
• Measurement and integration of EE leadership activities, practices, and relational processes into existing ecosystem measurement frameworks
• Use of network metrics to assess distribution of participation, influence, and coordination within EE leadership processes
• Measures capturing whether EE leadership is concentrated or distributed, formal or informal, and how these configurations change over time