Abstract
This research investigates how boundary work as a fluid and agential multilevel process considering both temporal and gender aspects resulting in the emergence of entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE). Though “boundaries” have not been noticed across EE literature, it is highly relevant because EE studies largely focus on whether defining EE’s components within a territory or fitting a regional innovation and entrepreneurial system into EE’s checklist (e.g., Santos and Neumeyer, 2022). Most EE definitions assume EE has a geographically defined boundary (e.g., Isenberg, 2010; Spigel, 2017). This territorial embeddedness viewpoint contrasts the understanding of EE as a “naturally evolving system” in which actors’ interactions may flow to and from places outside their local system (Malecki, 2018). Furthermore, though entrepreneurs are considered central players who build and sustain EE (Brown and Mason, 2017; Roundy and Lyons, 2022), as well as the catalyst for actions (Isenberg, 2010), the role of agency in changing EE’s boundaries, and the impact of their interactions on EE dynamics have not yet been studied. Therefore, EE research has provided limited theory-oriented and empirically validated recommendations for entrepreneurs and policymakers (Hannigan et al., 2021). Thus, I found it important to study how boundaries practices that consider gender and temporal dynamics influence the emergence of EE, simultaneously challenging EE literature’s prior assumptions of EE’s boundaries bordered by regional or geographical boundaries.