The wisdom of ecosystems: A transactive memory theory of knowledge management in entrepreneurial ecosystems

• Date: 01 July 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/kpm.1635
• Published date: 01 July 2020

RESEARCH ARTICLE

The wisdom of ecosystems: A transactive memory theory of

knowledge management in entrepreneurial ecosystems

Philip T. Roundy

Marketing and Entrepreneurship, University of

Tennessee at Chattanooga, Chattanooga,

Tennessee

Correspondence

Philip Roundy, Marketing and

Entrepreneurship, University of Tennessee at

Chattanooga, Gary W. Rollins College of

Business, 615 McCallie Avenue, Chattanooga,

TN 37403-2504.

Email: philip-roundy@utc.edu

The contextual turn in entrepreneurship research has shifted scholars' attention to

the place-based forces that shape entrepreneurship in vibrant entrepreneurial eco-

systems, such as Silicon Valley, Stockholm, and Bangalore. Studies find that an impor-

tant component of ecosystems is the knowledge they contain about the

entrepreneurship process. However, the critical questions of how entrepreneurs

overcome challenges associated with acquiring tacit knowledge, how entrepreneurs

leverage their ecosystems to organize knowledge, and what factors influence an eco-

system's ability to serve as a knowledge repository remain unexamined. To formulate

a theory explaining how entrepreneurs use their ecosystems to facilitate knowledge

management and organizational learning, insights from group cognition are adapted

to introduce the concept of entrepreneurial ecosystem transactive memory. It is the-

orized that ecosystem-level characteristics, including diversity, coherence, connectiv-

ity, prosociality, and interdependence, influence an ecosystem's transactive memory

structure and processes. By examining the linkages between ecosystem characteris-

tics and transactive memory, a more nuanced understanding of the cognitive dynam-

ics of entrepreneurial ecosystems is provided. The theoretical model charts a path for

interdisciplinary research on knowledge management in entrepreneurial ecosystems

and generates implications for practitioners.

1|INTRODUCTION

Entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) are the interconnected agents, insti-

tutions, and forces that promote and support entrepreneurship in geo-

graphic areas (Autio, Nambisan, Thomas, & Wright, 2018; Spigel &

Harrison, 2018; Stam, 2015). Vibrant EEs with high levels of entrepre-

neurial activity, such as London and S~

ao Paulo, are receiving intense

attention from academics and practitioners because of the belief that

thriving EEs are engines for economic and community development

(Acs, Stam, Audretsch, & O'Connor, 2017; Berger & Kuckertz, 2016;

Brown & Mason, 2017; Malecki, 2018; Roundy, 2019). There is also

growing acknowledgment among scholars that entrepreneurship is an

activity embedded in a dense web of location- and context-specific

forces (Magliacani & Madeo, 2018; Welter, 2011). Studies have

focused on teasing apart the place-based forces in ecosystems, identi-

fying EEs' social, cultural, and material components, and generating

insights into the development of EEs (Kuckertz, 2019; Mack &

Mayer, 2016; Spigel, 2017; Thompson, Purdy, & Ventresca, 2018).

Despite this progress, little is known about how EE characteristics

influence participants' cognition.

An under-explored pathway through which EEs influence cogni-

tion is by being environments ripe with entrepreneurial knowledge.

Knowledge is a critical resource for entrepreneurs and acquiring, orga-

nizing, and utilizing knowledge about the entrepreneurship process is

central to creating and scaling ventures (Audretsch & Keilbach, 2007;

uit Beijerse, 2000). Indeed, it is by integrating multiple knowledge

sources that entrepreneurs identify unobserved opportunities and

learn capabilities (Boccardelli & Magnusson, 2006; Hoang &

Antoncic, 2003; Spigel & Harrison, 2018). Knowledge is a “key ele-

ment”and “systemic condition”of EEs (Stam, 2015, p. 1765) and the

vibrancy of an ecosystem is a function of how freely knowledge about

opportunities, technologies, and the entrepreneurship process flows

through the system's networks (Auerswald & Dani, 2017; Bruns,

Bosma, Sanders, & Schramm, 2017).

Received: 17 March 2020 Accepted: 19 March 2020

DOI: 10.1002/kpm.1635

234 © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Knowl Process Manag. 2020;27:234–247.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/kpm