The emergence of entrepreneurial ecosystems by capital, habitus, and practice: A two-phase model based on Bourdieu’s approach

Entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) are identified as regions with intensive and coordinated entrepreneurship practices. However, there is less focus on the longitudinal perspective to track how an EE has taken form. In this research, to understand the emergence of an EE, we developed a two-phase model with Bourdieu’s approach and identified the contents and interaction of entrepreneurship capitals, habitus, and practices in each phase. By analysing 34 interviews of technology entrepreneurs from Shenzhen, China, we found that in the heteronomous phase, pursuing economic capital and the habitus of making quick profit results in entrepreneurship practices of copycat business; and in the autonomous phase, valuing cultural capital and the habitus of altruism result in entrepreneurship practices of innovation activity. This study offers the following implications for practitioners. First, public sectors should invest in industries with high technology affordance that can create entrepreneurship opportunities. Second, social events can transform entrepreneurship practices from distributed individual level to coordinated social construction.