A tale of two entrepreneurial cities : exploring ecosystem-building approaches in Singapore and Hong Kong

• Main Author: Teo, Jun Yean
• Other Authors: Woo Jun Jie
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2018
• Subjects: DRNTU::Business
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/74372
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

To drive economic growth, many governments today, especially in Asia, are attempting to develop their own entrepreneurship ecosystems (EEs), with 2 notable ones being Singapore and Hong Kong. Interestingly, both have developed their EEs using different approaches, top-down and bottom-up respectively. The purpose of this paper is to explore how these approaches impact differently on an EE’s outcomes, a topic which has been relatively under-explored in the literature. The paper adopted a multiple case study methodology, using mainly “progress reports” to assess empirically the influence of government approaches on the outcomes in Singapore and Hong Kong’s EEs, delineated in 2 different domains. The results showed that the top-down approach leads to greater coordination within the EE, though it remains ambiguous if this necessarily leads to better outcomes for the EE. This research revealed alternative trends that have not been exposed in prior research, thereby challenging dominant assumptions in the field.