The role of cultural change in cultivating entrepreneurial ecosystems in EU's low-growth lagging regions

This dissertation explores the dynamics that underlie the development of entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) in low-growth lagging regions of Europe. Entrepreneurial ecosystems have been conceptualized over the last few years to respond to the need to explain the dynamics that foster productive entrepreneurship at the regional and national levels. Nevertheless, while regions with higher rates of development in entrepreneurship and innovation experience either the natural emergence or a faster and easier path of development of EEs, lagging regions in Europe (and, especially, extremely-low-growth ones) are characterized by different and hindering starting conditions under the economic, social, and spatial points of view, which raise the need of thinking differently at the stages of development of an EE. Thus, after exploring the entrepreneurial ecosystem construct and unpacking the issues that affect low-growth lagging regions of the EU, this conceptual work investigates the role of culture in the processes of entrepreneurial ecosystem building in these geographies and proposes a conceptual framework to solve the issues related to cultural resistance in those regions. The work, thus, is structured as follows: 1) the first chapter deconstructs the EE concept by analyzing both its roots in literature and its structure (in terms of its elements and the factors influencing its progress) and clears the need for an ecosystem manager; 2) the second chapter analyzes the structure and dynamics of EEs (in terms of the influence of actors on the factors) that guide the evolution of EEs over time, and propose a strategic process path for ecosystem managers; 3) the third chapter, instead, considers the necessary starting conditions for a region to have its thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem, and comprehends an in-depth analysis on the role of culture in the process of EE building. In doing so, he proposes an adaptation of the model of the “Diffusion of Innovations” to the entrepreneurial ecosystem construct.