Towards a new paradigm of “coopetitiveness” in emerging countries: Case of the Algerian Entrepreneurial Ecosystems

Abstract

The main aim of this paper is to propose thinking tracks of Entrepreneurial Ecosystems based on a “Quintuple Helix” approach that overcomes the competitive partitions by founding a paradigm of “coopetition” and “coopetitiveness” through the “intelligent specialization” with a strong societal and economic impact. Indeed, the dominant vision in most of emerging countries calls the relationship between Entrepreneurial Ecosystems and their actors, exclusively in terms of competitiveness aspects by reproducing identically the North-American models unlinked to the environmental dissimilarities, such as entrepreneurial culture. However, it is important to enquiring about the spatiotemporal adaptability of this model in the emerging countries contexts, particularly through its uninhibited relationship to the concepts of individual success and failure as well as the ecosystems running based mainly on private financing from business angels, crowdfunding and venture capital investors. While the creation of a startup is administratively facilitated, the uncertainties of the environment put its sustainability in a severe test.

The causes are numerous, we cite among others, the difficulty of these startups to fit into a multidisciplinary working mode, hence the necessity to integrate them in the value chain of an ecosystem where they answer efficiently to mutualized and specific R&D needs. That's why we propose to identify the main barriers to open innovation as well as the catalysts enabling the creation of the integrative entrepreneurial ecosystems. By borrowing the paradigm of the city, we highlight the “urbanized” ecosystem made up of “useful” and “specialized” blocks, integrated in the value chain of this ecosystem. We will show the viability of the proposed tracks through many cases of economic, societal and academic actions undertaken in Algeria in order to setting up a favorable environment of integrative entrepreneurial ecosystems.