How Entrepreneurs Develop Collective Strategies for Institutional Work in their City
About this event
Our research seminars provide a forum for academics to present and discuss their latest work. Academics come from both within the Business School and from external institutions. They share insights from their research or a paper in progress. This is followed by discussion and questions from the audience. The series is open to staff and students from across the University.
Hosted by
Speaker
Juan Hwang, PhD student in Economic Geography (CURDS)
Abstract
This study aims to examine how micro-level entrepreneurs influence macro-level local institutions (i.e., institutional arrangements), ultimately contributing to the emergence of an entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) and a new industrial path in a city. Contemporary urban and regional development studies have emphasised the role of entrepreneurship and institutions. However, there persists a strong belief that formal and informal institutions predominantly shape entrepreneurship, leaving little space for human agency. Moreover, a dynamic perspective on the relationship between institutions and entrepreneurship is lacking, acknowledging the stable and persistent nature of institutions. Entrepreneurs disrupt established structures by creating novel flows and directions among organisations and resources; moreover, their interpretations and impacts on local institutions change throughout their life cycles, which call for continual adjustment in local institutional arrangements. To address these issues, this study investigates the dynamic, recursive interaction between entrepreneurs and institutions, drawing on the notion of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, in which entrepreneurs create value not only in the market but also in the framework conditions. By comparing the two Korean (former) industrial cities from the late 1990s to the present, this study can also highlight the key temporal and geographical conditions in this process.