The entrepreneurship triangle: a novel approach to explain national differences in entrepreneurship

Peter J. Buckley; Luis Alfonso Dau; Surender Munjal

doi:10.1057/s42214-025-00222-w

The entrepreneurship triangle: a novel approach to explain national differences in entrepreneurship

Peter J. Buckley, Luis Alfonso Dau^*, Surender Munjal

^*Corresponding author for this work

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Abstract

This conceptual paper introduces the entrepreneurship triangle as a mechanism to analyze differences in entrepreneurial ecosystems across nations. The theory provides a structure to examine how institutional processes and changes in state, market, and society co-evolve with entrepreneurial actions. Using these dimensions (state, market, and society), we analyze the expected dominance of high and low levels of entrepreneurship in a country. High-level entrepreneurship occurs in a formal/organized manner, whereas low-level entrepreneurship occurs in an informal/unorganized fashion. We argue that, depending on the arrangement of state, market, and society institutional mechanisms in place in a country, we can predict either high- or low-level entrepreneurship, or a mixture of the two. This has direct implications for public policy, as one of the main levers that states can employ to improve entrepreneurial activity in their country is through changes in their institutions.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	406-427
Number of pages	22
Journal	Journal of International Business Policy
Volume	8
Early online date	21 Aug 2025
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1057/s42214-025-00222-w
Publication status	Published - 1 Dec 2025

Bibliographical note

Copyright © The Author(s) 2025. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Keywords

Market efficiency
High- and low-level entrepreneurship
Institutional theory
Entrepreneurial ecosystem
Public policy
Formal and informal institutions
Regulatory quality

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10.1057/s42214-025-00222-wLicence: CC BY 4.0

The entrepreneurship triangle
Copyright © The Author(s) 2025. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Final published version, 0.98 MBLicence: CC BY 4.0

Cite this

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abstract = "This conceptual paper introduces the entrepreneurship triangle as a mechanism to analyze differences in entrepreneurial ecosystems across nations. The theory provides a structure to examine how institutional processes and changes in state, market, and society co-evolve with entrepreneurial actions. Using these dimensions (state, market, and society), we analyze the expected dominance of high and low levels of entrepreneurship in a country. High-level entrepreneurship occurs in a formal/organized manner, whereas low-level entrepreneurship occurs in an informal/unorganized fashion. We argue that, depending on the arrangement of state, market, and society institutional mechanisms in place in a country, we can predict either high- or low-level entrepreneurship, or a mixture of the two. This has direct implications for public policy, as one of the main levers that states can employ to improve entrepreneurial activity in their country is through changes in their institutions.",

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The entrepreneurship triangle: a novel approach to explain national differences in entrepreneurship

Abstract

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Keywords

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