Creating Intentional Space: Governance and Inclusion in Entrepreneurship Ecosystems

• In Event: Entrepreneurial Support Organizations as Innovation Infrastructure: Ecosystem Roles, Reach, and Policy Implications

Abstract

Despite growing investments in entrepreneurship as a tool for economic development, traditional innovation ecosystems often fail to serve Minority- and Women-Owned Businesses (MWOBs), who continue to face systemic barriers to accessing capital, markets, and support infrastructure (Bates, 2022; Fairlie & Robb, 2008; Wang, 2023). As policymakers and ecosystem builders seek to foster inclusive innovation, there is a pressing need to understand how support systems can be intentionally designed to address structural exclusion and promote equitable outcomes (Mazzucato, 2024). This paper engages this policy challenge by examining a national initiative that offers a model for inclusive ecosystem governance. 

Focusing on a nationally designed, locally-embedded entrepreneurial ecosystem operating across 13 U.S. cities, we examine how public, private, and civic actors coordinate to build entrepreneurship ecosystems that address persistent systemic barriers faced by MWOBs. Drawing on 90 semi-structured interviews, document analysis, and participant observation, we develop the concept of intentional space creation to describe how ecosystem leaders mobilize cross-sector resources, align institutional incentives, and adapt service delivery to local needs. Framed by theories of institutional entrepreneurship, market failure, and joined-up governance, our analysis highlights how inclusion is operationalized not merely through resource access, but through trust-building, cultural responsiveness, and adaptive governance structures that reflect place-based constraints and histories of exclusion (Betancourt, 2003; Cross & Others, 1989). The study offers a grounded model of ecosystem orchestration that bridges innovation theory with public policy practice, showing how knowledge integration and collaborative infrastructure can transform entrepreneurial support systems from fragmented service networks into equity-centered, mission-driven ecosystems (Herbertson & Lee, 2024). This research contributes to science and technology policy by illuminating how innovation ecosystems can be purposefully reconfigured to foster inclusive economic development and institutional resilience through coordinated, context-aware design (Kloosterman, 2010; Mazzucato, 2018).

Author

• Qingfang Wang, University of California, Riverside
  Presenting Author