Accelerator Niches in an Emerging Entrepreneurial Ecosystem: New York City
(Published in Local Economy)
In 2019, I had a chance to travel to New York City, which was my first solo trip to the city never sleeps. I enjoyed walking around many beautiful places in my three favorite movies (e.g., Intern, Begin Again, & The Devil Wears Prada).
Then, almost at the end of my trip (maybe somewhere around the mid-Manhattan area when I was walking back from Washington Square Park to Times Square), I noticed that I was surrounded by a number of entrepreneurship support organizations populating that area. Accelerators and coworking spaces intensifying the startup vibe in that area instigated my academic curiosity.
What led them to populate in the city that never sleeps? Was there any interesting pattern in their temporal emergence? Those questions led to my first publication in Local Economy. My co-authors and I found the shift toward specialization, coherent with the theories on Organizational Ecology. We also found the organizational ecology of accelerators in NYC started from the periphery, which approves the role of peripheral regions in industrial and organizational emergence.
(Co-authored with Paige Clayton and Maryann Feldman)
Policies for Creating Entrepreneurial Ecosystems
(Book chapter)
Entrepreneurs have a bunch of channels to access assets essential for starting a new business; various types of entrepreneurship support organizations (ESOs), such as accelerators, coworking spaces, and crowdfunding platforms, have been emerging in a number of entrepreneurial ecosystems around the world. Additionally, governments and policymakers are competing to launch public support programs for nascent firms. Based on a systematic literature review, my advisor and I categorize a variety of policy engagements into three: seeding capital, seeding opportunities, and seeding support. We also suggest key policy implications and future research topics. (Co-authored with Maryann Feldman)
Joonho Oh 