Skip to main content
Log in

Competitiveness analysis and evaluation of entrepreneurial ecosystems: a multi-criteria approach

  • S.I.: BALCOR-2017
  • Published:
Annals of Operations Research Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is, to propose a methodology for the comparison and ranking of Entrepreneurial Ecosystems (EEs) in order to offer the decision maker a straightforward way of assessing the competitiveness of national economies. EEs are a coordinated set of individual and institutional agents, on the national level, aimed to pursue economic development through the discovery and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities. Among the various approaches found in EE research, the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor consortium evaluates the national economic development of more than 100 countries, concerning both individual and contextual factors. Entrepreneurship Framework Conditions of national EEs are rated on an annual basis by groups of domain experts on a number of predefined criteria. These ratings describe the various facets of the EEs, exposing strengths and weaknesses of the contextual environment, offering a snapshot of the competitiveness conditions of the national economy. However, comparative studies examining the relative performance of each EE, are needed in order to communicate useful information and help stakeholders make insightful decisions and design policy. The ranking of EEs as different alternatives based on multiple criteria is a Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) problem. The relative importance of each criterion is defined either by experts or by statistical methods. The selection of criteria weights is usually a cumbersome procedure. The utilization of non-weighted or equal weight methods, eliminates the need for definition of weights, it has less computational overhead and can produce distinct and objective rankings of the alternatives. The Greek EE is taken as a working example, and it is compared with a number of developed and developing countries, as alternatives. The consistence of the ranking results produced by the method proposed is compared with the evaluations of other EE metrics and the results of other well accepted MCDM methods. The application of the method produced a distinct ranking for each alternative EE. The Greek EE ranked below average among the countries of the comparison group, implying that it is less conducive for entrepreneurship development, although it is categorized among the most developed Innovation Driven economies. The theoretical and practical implications of the results are thoroughly discussed offering useful conclusions.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Similar content being viewed by others

References

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ioannis Sitaridis.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Sitaridis, I., Kitsios, F. Competitiveness analysis and evaluation of entrepreneurial ecosystems: a multi-criteria approach. Ann Oper Res 294, 377–399 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-019-03404-x

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-019-03404-x

Keywords

Navigation