Abstract
The purpose of this paper is, to propose a methodology for the comparison and ranking of Entrepreneurial Ecosystems (EEs) in order to offer the decision maker a straightforward way of assessing the competitiveness of national economies. EEs are a coordinated set of individual and institutional agents, on the national level, aimed to pursue economic development through the discovery and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities. Among the various approaches found in EE research, the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor consortium evaluates the national economic development of more than 100 countries, concerning both individual and contextual factors. Entrepreneurship Framework Conditions of national EEs are rated on an annual basis by groups of domain experts on a number of predefined criteria. These ratings describe the various facets of the EEs, exposing strengths and weaknesses of the contextual environment, offering a snapshot of the competitiveness conditions of the national economy. However, comparative studies examining the relative performance of each EE, are needed in order to communicate useful information and help stakeholders make insightful decisions and design policy. The ranking of EEs as different alternatives based on multiple criteria is a Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) problem. The relative importance of each criterion is defined either by experts or by statistical methods. The selection of criteria weights is usually a cumbersome procedure. The utilization of non-weighted or equal weight methods, eliminates the need for definition of weights, it has less computational overhead and can produce distinct and objective rankings of the alternatives. The Greek EE is taken as a working example, and it is compared with a number of developed and developing countries, as alternatives. The consistence of the ranking results produced by the method proposed is compared with the evaluations of other EE metrics and the results of other well accepted MCDM methods. The application of the method produced a distinct ranking for each alternative EE. The Greek EE ranked below average among the countries of the comparison group, implying that it is less conducive for entrepreneurship development, although it is categorized among the most developed Innovation Driven economies. The theoretical and practical implications of the results are thoroughly discussed offering useful conclusions.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Acs, Z. (2006). How is entrepreneurship good for economic growth? Innovations: Technology Governance, Globalization, 1(1), 97–107. https://doi.org/10.1162/itgg.2006.1.1.97.
Acs, Z. J., Autio, E., & Laszlo, S. (2012). National systems of entrepreneurship: Measurement issues and policy implications. Research Policy, 43, 476–494. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2008160.
Acs, Z. J., Estrin, S., Mickiewicz, T., & Szerb, L. (2018). Entrepreneurship, institutional economics, and economic growth: an ecosystem perspective. Small Business Economics, 51(2), 501–514. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-018-0013-9.
Ács, Z. J., & Szerb, L. (2007). The global entrepreneurship index (GEINDEX). Foundations and Trends® in Entrepreneurship, 5(5), 341–435. https://doi.org/10.1561/0300000027.
Adams-Kane, J., Lopez, C., & Wilhelmus, J. (2016). Global opportunity index: Methodology. Santa Monica: Milken Institute.
Ahmad, N., & Hoffmann, A. (2007). A framework for addressing and measuring entrepreneurship. Paris: OECD. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1090374.
Audretsch, D. B., & Lehmann, E. (2006). Entrepreneurial access and absorption of knowledge spillovers: Strategic board and managerial composition for competitive advantage. Journal of Small Business Management, 44(2), 155–166. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-627X.2006.00161.x.
Baumol, W. J. (2007). On income distribution and growth. Journal of Policy Modeling, 29(4), 545–548. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpolmod.2007.05.004.
Baumol, W. J., & Strom, R. J. (2008). Entrepreneurship and economic growth. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 1(2007), 233–237. https://doi.org/10.1002/sej.
Bergmann, H., Mueller, S., & Schrettle, T. (2013). The use of global entrepreneurship monitor data in academic research: A critical inventory and future potentials. Journal of Entrepreneurial Venturing, 1–43. https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/217994/1/BergmannMuellerSchrettle2012_TheuseofGEMdatainacademicresearch_IJEV_Alexandria.pdf.
Bosma, N. (2013). The global entrepreneurship monitor (GEM) and its impact on entrepreneurship research. Foundations and Trends in Entrepreneurship, 9(2), 143–248. https://doi.org/10.1561/0300000033.
Bosma, N., Jones, K., Autio, E., & Levie, J. (2007). Global entrepreneurship monitor 2007 executive report.
Brans, J.-P., & Mareschal, B. (2005). PROMETHEE methods. In J. Figueira, S. Greco, & M. Ehrgott (Eds.), Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis: State of the Art Surveys. International Series in Operations Research & Management Science. Boston: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-23081-5_5.
Brans, J. P., Vincke, P., & Mareschal, B. (1986). How to select and how to rank projects: The Promethee method. European Journal of Operational Research, 24(2), 228–238.
Carayannis, E. G. (2014a). Processes of entrepreneurship and new venture creation. In M. D. Giudice, M. R. Della Peruta, & E. G. Carayannis (Eds.), Student Entrepreneurship in the Social Knowledge Economy (pp. 3–12). Berlin: Springer.
Carayannis, E. G. (2014b). Managing the entrepreneurial process: The relationship between Universities and early entrepreneurship. In M. D. Giudice, M. R. Della Peruta, & E. G. Carayannis (Eds.), Student Entrepreneurship in the Social Knowledge Economy. Berlin: Springer.
Carayannis, E. G., & Grigoroudis, E. (2016). Using multiobjective mathematical programming to link national competitiveness, productivity, and innovation. Annals of Operations Research, 247(2), 635–655. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-015-1873-x.
Carayannis, E. G., Grigoroudis, E., & Goletsis, Y. (2016). A multilevel and multistage efficiency evaluation of innovation systems: a multiobjective DEA approach. Expert Systems with Applications, 62, 63–80. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2016.06.017.
Cavallo, A., Ghezzi, A., & Balocco, R. (2018). Entrepreneurial ecosystem research: Present debates and future directions. International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11365-018-0526-3.
Chen, J. K., & Chen, I. S. (2012). Critical creativity criteria for students in higher education: Taking the interrelationship effect among dimensions into account. Quality & Quantity, 46(4), 1057–1075. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-011-9448-7.
Choo, S., & Wong, M. (2006). Entrepreneurial intention: Triggers and barriers to new venture creations in Singapore. Singapore Management Review, 28(2), 47–64. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2014.07.009.
Corrente, S., Greco, S., Nicotra, M., Romano, M., & Schillaci, C. E. (2018). Evaluating and comparing entrepreneurial ecosystems using SMAA and SMAA-S. Journal of Technology Transfer. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10961-018-9684-2.
Dhochak, M., & Sharma, A. K. (2016a). Integration of factors affecting venture capitalists’ investment decision: An interpretive structural modelling approach. International Journal of Management and Decision Making, 15(1), 38–52. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJMDM.2016.076838.
Dhochak, M., & Sharma, A. K. (2016b). Identification and prioritization of factors affecting venture capitalists’ investment decision-making process. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 23(4), 964–983. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSBED-12-2015-0166.
Economidou, C., Grilli, L., Henrekson, M., & Sanders, M. (2018). Financial and institutional reforms for an entrepreneurial society. Small Business Economics, 51(2), 279–291. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-018-0001-0.
Figueira, J., Mousseau, V., & Roy, B. (2005). ELECTRE methods. In J. Figueira, S. Greco, & M. Ehrgott (Eds.), Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis State of the Art Surveys. Berlin: Springer.
Gantmacher, F. R. (1959). The Theory of Matrices. New York: Chelsea Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-99234-6.
GEM. (2016). The Entreprenerial Ecosystem. Global Entrepreneurship Research Association. http://www.gemconsortium.org/data/key-nes. Accessed 20 June 2019.
Gwo-Hshiung, T., & Huang, Jih-Jang. (2010). Multiple Attribute Decision Making: Methods and Applications. Berlin, Heidelberg: CRC Press, Springer.
Herrington, M., Kew, P., & Singer, S. (2017). GEM Global Report 2016/17. Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781107415324.004.
Holienka, M. (2015). Entrepreneurial environment in Slovakia: Multi-perspective comparison with innovation-driven economies. Procedia Economics and Finance, 34(15), 437–444. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2212-5671(15)01652-4.
Huang, P. H., & Moh, T. T. (2017). A non-linear non-weight method for multi-criteria decision making. Annals of Operations Research, 248(1–2), 239–251. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-016-2208-2.
Ioannides, S., Korra, E., & Giotopoulos, I. (2016). Entrepreneurship 2014–2015 : The Dynamics of the Greek Entrepreneurship System During the Crisis. Entrepreneurship Observatory IOBE.
Isenberg, D. J. (2008). The global entrepreneur. Harvard Business Review, 86(12), 107–111+134. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203728802.
Isenberg, D. (2011). The Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Strategy as a New Paradigm for Economic Development: Principles for Cultivating Entrepreneurship. Boston: The Babson Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Project. https://doi.org/10.1093/rfs/hhr098.
Keener, J. P. (2005). The Perron–Frobenius theorem and the ranking of football teams. SIAM Review, 35(1), 80–93. https://doi.org/10.1137/1035004.
Kelley, D., Singer, S. S., & Herrington, M. (2016). GEM global report 2015/16. Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. ISBN: 978-1-939242-05-1.
Kitsios, F., Doumpos, M., Grigoroudis, E., & Zopounidis, C. (2009). Evaluation of new service development strategies using multicriteria analysis: Predicting the success of innovative hospitality services. Operational Research, 9(1), 17–33. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12351-008-0025-3.
Kolvereid, L., & Isaksen, E. (2006). New business start-up and subsequent entry into self-employment. Journal of Business Venturing, 21(6), 866–885. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2005.06.008.
Krohling, R. A., & De Souza, T. T. M. (2011). Two examples of application of TOPSIS to decision making problems. Revista de Sistemas de Informação da FSMA, 8, 31–35.
Kuratko, D. F. (2011). Entrepreneurship theory, process, and practice in the 21st century. International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 13(1), 8. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJESB.2011.040412.
Langville, A. N., & Meyer, C. D. (2006). Google’s pagerank and beyond. information retrieval. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Larson, R., & Falvo, D. (2009). Power methods for approximating eigenvalues. In Elementary Linear Algebra (pp. 586–594). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing.
Levie, J., & Autio, E. (2008). A theoretical grounding and test of the GEM model. Small Business Economics, 31(3), 235–263. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-008-9136-8.
Liguori, E., Bendickson, J., Solomon, S., & McDowell, W. C. (2019). Development of a multi-dimensional measure for assessing entrepreneurial ecosystems. Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, 31(1–2), 7–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/08985626.2018.1537144.
Mack, E., & Mayer, H. (2015). The evolutionary dynamics of entrepreneurial ecosystems. Urban Studies, 53(10), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098015586547.
Mareschal, B., & De Smet, Y. (2009). Visual PROMETHEE: Developments of the PROMETHEE & GAIA multicriteria decision aid methods. In IEEM 2009—IEEE International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management (pp. 1646–1649). https://doi.org/10.1109/ieem.2009.5373124.
Maroufkhani, P., Wagner, R., & Wan Ismail, W. K. (2018). Entrepreneurial ecosystems: A systematic review. Journal of Enterprising Communities, 12(4), 545–564. https://doi.org/10.1108/JEC-03-2017-0025.
Mason, C., & Brown, R. (2013). Creating good public policy to support high-growth firms. Small Business Economics, 40(2), 211–225. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-011-9369-9.
OECD. (2005). Micro-Policies for Growth and Productivity : Final Report. Paris: OECD.
Opricovic, S., & Tzeng, G. H. (2004). Compromise solution by MCDM methods: A comparative analysis of VIKOR and TOPSIS. European Journal of Operational Research, 156(2), 445–455. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0377-2217(03)00020-1.
Opricovic, S., & Tzeng, G. H. (2007). Extended VIKOR method in comparison with outranking methods. European Journal of Operational Research, 178(2), 514–529. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2006.01.020.
Peruta, M. R. D. (2014). Designing an entrepreneurial profile in higher educational systems. In E. G. Carayannis (Ed.), Student entrepreneurship in the Social Knowledge Economy. Innovation, technology, and knowledge management (pp. 73–86). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05567-1_6.
Peterman, N. E., & Kennedy, J. (2003). Enterprise education: Influencing students’ perceptions of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 28(2), 129–144. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1540-6520.2003.00035.x.
Pittaway, L., & Cope, J. (2007). Simulating entrepreneurial learning: Integrating experiential and collaborative approaches to learning. Management Learning, 38(2), 211–233. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350507607075776.
Plummer, L. A., & Acs, Z. J. (2012). Localized competition in the knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship. Journal of Business Venturing, 29(1), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2012.10.003.
Porter, M. E., Sachs, J. D., Mcarthur, J. W., Cornelius, P. K., Mcarthur, J. W., Mcarthur, J. W., et al. (2002). Global Competitiveness Report. Cologny: World Economic Forum. https://doi.org/10.1002/yd.320.
Reynolds, P., Bosma, N., Autio, E., Hunt, S., De Bono, N., Servais, I., et al. (2005). Global entrepreneurship monitor: Data collection design and implementation 1998–2003. Small Business Economics, 24(3), 205–231. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-005-1980-1.
Rezaei, J. (2015). Best-worst multi-criteria decision-making method. Omega (United Kingdom), 53((June 2015)), 49–57. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.omega.2014.11.009.
Rezaei, J., Ortt, R., & Scholten, V. (2012). Measuring entrepreneurship: Expert-based versus data-based methodologies. Expert Systems with Applications, 39(4), 4063–4074. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2011.09.091.
Rezaei, J., Ortt, R., & Scholten, V. (2013). An improved fuzzy preference programming to evaluate entrepreneurship orientation. Applied Soft Computing Journal, 13(5), 2749–2758. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asoc.2012.11.012.
Robertson, M., Collins, A., Medeira, N., & Slater, J. (2003). Barriers to start-up and their effect on aspirant entrepreneurs. Education + Training, 45(6), 308–316. https://doi.org/10.1108/00400910310495950.
Roy, B. (1968). Classement Et choix en presence de points de vue multiples. Revue Française D’Informatique et De Recherche Opérationnelle, 2(8), 57–75.
Roy, B. (1991). The outranking approach and the foundations of electre methods. Theory and Decision, 31(1), 49–73. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00134132.
Roy, B. (Ed.). (1996). Specific difficulties in choice, sorting, and ranking problematics. In Multicriteria methodogy for decision aiding. (Vol. 12, pp. 269–276). Dortrecht: Springer Science + Business Media. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-2500-1.
Saad, Y. (2011). Numerical Methods for Large Eigenvalue Problems. Minneapolis: Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (II.). https://doi.org/10.1137/1.9781611970739.
Saaty, T. L. (1987). Rank according to Perron: A new insight. Mathematics Magazine, 60(4), 211. https://doi.org/10.2307/2689340.
Saaty, T. L. (1990). How to make a decision: The analytic hierarchy process. European Journal of Operational Research, 48(1), 9–26. https://doi.org/10.1016/0377-2217(90)90057-I.
Schoemaker, P. J. H., & Waid, C. C. (1982). An experimental comparison of different approaches to determining weights in additive utility models. Management Science, 28(2), 182–196. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.28.2.182.
Schwab, K. (Ed.). (2016). The global competitiveness report. In Geneva: World Economic Forum. http://reports.weforum.org/globalcompetitiveness-index-2017-2018..
Singer, S., Amoros, J. E., & Arreola, D. M. (2015). GEM Global Report 2014 (Vol. 53). Global Entrepreneurship Monitor.
Sitaridis, I., & Kitsios, F. (2016). A Taxonomy of barriers to entrepreneurship. In 5th International Symposium & 27th National Conference on Operational Research (pp. 133–137). Aigaleo, Athens.
Sitaridis, I., & Kitsios, F. (2017). Entrepreneurial intentions of information technology students: The theory of planned behavior, the role of gender and education. Journal for International Business and Entrepreneurship Development, 10(3), 316–335.
Souitaris, V., Zerbinati, S., & Al-Laham, A. (2007). Do entrepreneurship programmes raise entrepreneurial intention of science and engineering students? The effect of learning, inspiration and resources. Journal of Business Venturing, 22(4), 566–591. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2006.05.002.
Spigel, B. (2015). The relational organization of entrepreneurial ecosystems. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice. https://doi.org/10.1111/etap.12167.
Spigel, B., & Harrison, R. (2018). Toward a process theory of entrepreneurial ecosystems. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 12(1), 151–168. https://doi.org/10.1002/sej.1268.
Stam, E. (2015). Entrepreneurial ecosystems and regional policy: A sympathetic critique. European Planning Studies, 23(9), 1759–1769. https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2015.1061484.
Stam, E., & Spigel, B. (2016). Entrepreneurial Ecosystems. In R. BlackBurn, D. Clereq, J. Heinonen, & Z. Wang (Eds.), Handbook for Entrepreneurship and Small Business. London: SAGE.
Szerb, L. (2013). The Comparison of the global entrepreneurship monitor and the global entrepreneurship and development index methodologies. Foundations and Trends® inEntrepreneurship, 9(1), 1–142. https://doi.org/10.1561/0300000046.
Szerb, L., & Trumbull, W. N. (2015). Entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial ecosystem in the V4 countries: The global entrepreneurship index perspective. In Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Management 2015. Management, leadership and strategy for SMEs’ competitiveness (pp. 2–7). https://doi.org/10.17626/dbem.icom.p00.2015.p001.
Xu, L., & Yang, J. (2001). Introduction to Multi-Criteria Decision Making and the Evidential Reasoning Approach. Manchester: Manchester School of Management.
Yue, Z. (2011). An extended TOPSIS for determining weights of decision makers with interval numbers. Knowledge-Based Systems, 24(1), 146–153. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.knosys.2010.07.014.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Sitaridis, I., Kitsios, F. Competitiveness analysis and evaluation of entrepreneurial ecosystems: a multi-criteria approach. Ann Oper Res 294, 377–399 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-019-03404-x
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-019-03404-x