Redefining the entrepreneurial ecosystem in China from a network-based view: A review and proposal for future research

Although scholars have recognized that entrepreneurial activities vary across their embedded contexts, the existing literature still relies primarily on theories developed within the context of Western liberal market economy, in which government rarely interferes with business. We argue that China’s socialist market economic system, which emphasizes the government’s macro-control in business, creates differences in the conceptualization of entrepreneurial ecosystem. We apply a network-based analysis framework to review actors’ interaction examined by scholars in entrepreneurial ecosystem literature published in English and Chinese journals from 2000 to 2022. We find that differences between Western entrepreneurial ecosystems and Chinese entrepreneurial ecosystems mainly result from the Chinese government’s dominant institutional role. Such differences make the concept of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Chinese practice distinctively different from the current Western-based conceptualization of an entrepreneurial ecosystem. Based on our findings, we propose a research agenda for future entrepreneurial ecosystem network research focusing on the Chinese context and related contexts.