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The role of the entrepreneurial university in building an entrepreneurial ecosystem in a post conflict economy: An exploratory study of Rwanda
Author(s) -
Nkusi Alain C.,
Cunningham James A.,
Nyuur Richard,
Pattinson Steven
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
thunderbird international business review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.553
H-Index - 37
eISSN - 1520-6874
pISSN - 1096-4762
DOI - 10.1002/tie.22165
Subject(s) - ecosystem , exploratory analysis , exploratory research , entrepreneurship , business , economic system , economics , sociology , ecology , social science , biology , data science , finance , computer science
The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of the entrepreneurial university in supporting the development of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in a post conflict, transitional economy. We developed a cross case analysis to identify common themes and patterns in the data. Our findings demonstrate that in a post conflict, transitional economy entrepreneurial universities entrepreneurial ecosystem development is constrained by a number of institutional factors including, structures , systems , leadership , strategies , and culture . We further identify that, when an entrepreneurial ecosystem system has been destroyed during conflict, these constraints present significant challenges to the evolution of the entrepreneurial ecosystem post conflict. Second, in a departure from other studies, our findings also outline the role of the entrepreneurial university in the unique evolution of the post conflict entrepreneurial ecosystem in Rwanda. We identify that the entrepreneurial ecosystem evolves through a number of stages including, embryonic , destruction , formation , and capacity building stages .