The role of the entrepreneurial university in building an entrepreneurial ecosystem in a post conflict economy: An exploratory study of Rwanda

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/tie.22165
• Published date: 01 September 2020
• Author: James A. Cunningham,Alain C. Nkusi,Steven Pattinson,Richard Nyuur
• Date: 01 September 2020

RESEARCH ARTICLE

The role of the entrepreneurial university in building an

entrepreneurial ecosystem in a post conflict economy: An

exploratory study of Rwanda

Alain C. Nkusi

1

| James A. Cunningham

2

| Richard Nyuur

2

| Steven Pattinson

3

1

Newcastle Business School, Northumbria

University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

2

Department of Entrepreneurship, Innovation

and Strategy, Newcastle Business School,

Northumbria University, Newcastle upon

Tyne, UK

3

Sheffield University Management School, The

University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

Correspondence

James A. Cunningham, Department of

Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Strategy,

Newcastle Business School, Northumbria

University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.

Email: james.cunningham@northumbria.ac.uk

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of the entrepreneurial university in

supporting the development of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in a post conflict, tran-

sitional economy. We developed a cross case analysis to identify common themes

and patterns in the data. Our findings demonstrate that in a post conflict, transitional

economy entrepreneurial universities entrepreneurial ecosystem development is con-

strained by a number of institutional factors including, structures,systems,leadership,

strategies, and culture. We further identify that, when an entrepreneurial ecosystem

system has been destroyed during conflict, these constraints present significant chal-

lenges to the evolution of the entrepreneurial ecosystem post conflict. Second, in a

departure from other studies, our findings also outline the role of the entrepreneurial

university in the unique evolution of the post conflict entrepreneurial ecosystem in

Rwanda. We identify that the entrepreneurial ecosystem evolves through a number

of stages including, embryonic,destruction,formation, and capacity building stages.

KEYWORDS

conflict, entrepreneurial ecosystems, entrepreneurial university, Rwanda, transitional

economies

1|INTRODUCTION

In this paper we examine the role of the entrepreneurial university in

the post conflict context of Rwanda, where genocide resulted in the

collapse of civil society, government, and other institutions. The pur-

pose of our paper is to examine the role of the entrepreneurial univer-

sity within the wider entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) in a post conflict,

transitional economy. Although our knowledge of EEs is developing

rapidly (Cavallo, Ghezzi, & Balocco, 2019; Hechavarría & Ingram, 2018;

Neumeyer & Santos, 2018; Stam, 2015), there is relatively little

known about the role of the entrepreneurial university (Cunningham,

Lehmann, Menter, & Seitz, 2019; Guerrero, Cunningham, &

Urbano, 2015) as part of the wider EE in transitional economies.

However, we do know that entrepreneurial universities

(Etzkowitz, 2013) are regarded as catalysts for regional and national

economic development in developed economies because they are a

natural incubator for potential entrepreneurs (Culkin, 2016; Guerrero,

Urbano, Cunningham, & Organ, 2014; Trequattrini, Lombardi, Lardo,

& Cuozzo, 2018; Urbano & Guerrero, 2013). In a post conflict context

understanding the role of the entrepreneurial university is critical for

rebuilding of civil society and institutions, and thus reducing the possi-

bility of a return to future conflict (Ishiyama & Breuning, 2012). How-

ever, the role of the entrepreneurial university is under-researched

and the challenge, post conflict, is significant. Entrepreneurial universi-

ties have to carefully balance post conflict peace building with

supporting the humanitarian and economic needs of local and regional

DOI: 10.1002/tie.22165

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reprodu ction in any medium,

provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2020 The Authors. Thunderbird International Business Review published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.

Thunderbird Int. Bus. Rev.. 2020;62:549–563. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/tie 549