Evolution and variety in complex geographies and enterprise policies

This Special Issue showcases eight articles on the emergent idea of “entrepreneurial ecosystems”. As a subject it has begun to attract early attention because it professes to realise the fundamentally social processes of entrepreneurial practice as against the cartoon-like figure of the heroic entrepreneur much–beloved of those in entrepreneurial studies and policies of a more individualistic persuasion. Furthermore, it aims to assist development of coherence in the field of study occasioned by the great variety of forms and labels given to small and micro-businesses consequent on the erosion in scale and scope of many traditional large enterprises. A further introductory point to be made is that many of the articles on display originate in South Korea where the attenuation of large corporate actors, stagnating national growth rates and government support for entrepreneurship have been one response to the crisis. Hanjin is merely one of the recent casualties of the faltering of globalisation for the South Korean corporate sector, beneficiary of major port-related innovation investment in the past as the South Korea–China comparison paper reveals. Other papers anatomise “platform ecosystems” in ICT applications, green urban policies, clusters, creative industry and regional development. All of these impinge upon government support for entrepreneurial efforts to grow a more social economy and, indeed, economic sociology and geography of regional and national growth.