Revitalising the periphery:How support organisations drive the inclusive evolution of entrepreneurial ecosystems

Abstract

This study investigates how support organisations for marginalised entrepreneurs (SOMEs), typically peripheral members within entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs), facilitate the inclusive evolution of EEs. Employing boundary theory and ethnographic research conducted over three years within a refugee entrepreneurship support organisation in Birmingham, UK, this study identifies a four-stage boundary work process: Knowledge brokering, Boundary buffer spacing, Boundary object developing, and Boundary practice institutionalising. These interconnected strategic stages enable SOMEs to reconfigure the knowledge-cognitive, resource-opportunity, and social network exclusionary boundaries of EEs progressively, facilitating EEs' adaptation to marginalised entrepreneurs' diverse needs and pursuits within the overarching growth-orientation of EEs. Theoretically, this study introduces a “periphery-to-centre” model of inclusive evolution, expanding the prevalent centre-driven perspective of EE inclusive evolution, and demonstrates how inclusion could coexist with EE's growth-orientation because of SOMEs' boundary work. The study also unfolds enablers for such effective boundary work, emphasising the effects of SOMEs' dual knowledge capabilities, dual network embeddedness, institutional rhetoric, and the path dependency of evolution.