The emergence of an entrepreneurial ecosystem: the interplay between early entrepreneurial activity and public policy in the Korean online gaming industry

As drivers of economic growth, entrepreneurial ecosystems are an important focus of research. We propose a new theoretical perspective, in which the formation of entrepreneurial ecosystems can be tied the provision of pre-entry capabilities and complementary assets that are generic to participants within a regional entrepreneurial ecosystem but difficult to access to firms outside it. We apply this framework through a study of the formation of an entrepreneurial ecosystem focused on online games in South Korea. Through comparative research, we show that access to pre-entry capabilities was widely available across the online gaming industry, but that Korea was unique during the late 1990s in creating infrastructure policies to provide widespread access to broadband internet, which became an important complementary asset for Korean firms. A focus on mechanisms by which value drivers become available to entrepreneurs within a region is a promising approach to explain the formation of entrepreneurial ecosystems.