The idea in brief
Entrepreneurial ecosystems do not support ventures through resources alone. They also contain partially codified “playbooks”: recurring routines through which actors decide who receives finance, mentoring, legitimacy and other forms of support. The article explains how changing these routines can make ecosystem resources more accessible to sustainable entrepreneurs and help an ecosystem shift towards a new value proposition.
What the article shows
- Playbooks are ecosystem-level configurations of routines that guide how resources are assembled and made accessible to entrepreneurs.
- Five mechanisms shape accessibility for sustainable entrepreneurship: role identities, goal diversity, openness to outsiders, malleability of the dominant knowledge regime and entrepreneurial culture.
- Sustainability transitions depend on how these mechanisms work together; simply adding new resources may leave established allocation routines unchanged.
Implications for entrepreneurs
- Learn the local playbook—who validates ventures, how decisions are made and which routines govern access to key resources.
- Select ecosystems whose routines are open to outsiders and compatible with sustainable goals, not merely those with the largest resource stock.
- Participate in changing routines by demonstrating new role models, measures of success and credible ways to resource sustainability-oriented ventures.
Implications for policymakers
- Audit the routines that allocate support, asking who repeatedly gains access and which sustainable ventures are screened out.
- Change role expectations, objectives and decision practices alongside any new funding or infrastructure intervention.
- Encourage openness, goal diversity and experimentation so that the ecosystem’s dominant knowledge regime can adapt.
This plain-language summary was prepared with AI assistance from the published abstract and available article information. The published article is the authoritative source; practical and policy implications are interpretive.