The role of entrepreneurial ecosystems in health technology SMEs’ business and internationalisation in the Finnish context

The thesis examines how health technology SMEs utilise entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) in their business and internationalisation. Entrepreneurship is a cornerstone for economic growth in many countries and recently the EE concept has gained increasing attention as the systemic framework used for describing and explaining entrepreneurship development. An EE provides a supportive environment for new start-ups to emerge and grow and especially small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) can find this kind of environment beneficial to their business. Health technology can be identified as an emerging, fast-growing and strategically important business field that can offer numerous new business opportunities to different actors. Therefore, health tech SMEs provide a timely and fruitful context to study the different, lesser-known aspects of EEs.

To increase our understanding of how SMEs benefit from the ecosystem around themselves, this thesis focuses on how research on EEs has evolved over time, what motivates health tech SMEs to engage in the EE, the orchestrator roles and related capabilities in the EE, and finally, what kind of role the EE plays in health tech SMEs’ internationalisation. The thesis consists of a literature review paper and three empirical papers. The empirical data comprises 19 semi-structured interviews conducted with the top management of health tech companies and members of the local ecosystem in northern Finland. The first paper was analysed using a systematic literature review, the second and third papers used the Gioia method, and the final paper used the content analysis method.

The results of the thesis show that the entrepreneurial ecosystem is continuously emerging and gaining popularity among academics, practitioners and policymakers. Health tech SMEs are motivated to engage in ecosystems to benefit from various social, resource and cognitive benefits. The thesis discovers different orchestration roles and related capabilities in the ecosystem. Finally, the ecosystem enables health tech SMEs to internationalise by providing various resources. The major contributions of this study are related to EE research, but it also contributes to orchestration and internationalisation literatures. The thesis is concluded by providing theoretical contributions and managerial implications for practitioners and policymakers.