Hamburg’s Entrepreneurial Ecosystem and the Next Media Initiative
Based on research into entrepreneurship policy done at UNSW in 2016, I completed my graduate studies at Hamburg University of Applied Sciences in December 2016 with a master thesis on the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Hamburg, Germany, and the entrepreneurship policy approach by the regional government.
The thesis is called “Hamburg’s Entrepreneurial Ecosystem And The Next Media Initiative – Public Policy Towards Entrepreneurship” and focuses on Hamburg’s regional innovation strategy 2020 and the dedicated media/IT industry cluster initiative nextMedia.Hamburg. The abstract of the thesis can be found below.
Introduction
Entrepreneurship, more specifically the formation of tech startups, is often attributed with economic growth and job creation due to their high-growth potential by many policy makers in the world. This link is widely debated in scientific literature, which does not necessarily seem to inform public policy.
The City of Hamburg established a Next Media Initiative – nextMedia.Hamburg – in 2014, focusing on media/IT industry related innovation to nurture the future development of this industry cluster with the help of high growth ventures.
This master thesis explores the composition of Hamburg’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, local government efforts to facilitate its development and the (dis)connect between municipal innovation policy and academic literature.
Method
With its nextMedia.Hamburg initiative within the media/IT industry cluster, the City of Hamburg aims to support the entrepreneurial ecosystem as well as the media and creative industry in general. In various official documents and on a dedicated nextMedia.Hamburg website the efforts to nurture innovation, to create more ventures and maintain Hamburg as a media industry capital are published.
This thesis will introduce the local entrepreneurial ecosystem along with its most relevant stakeholders and review the regional innovation strategy and nextMedia.Hamburg initiative in 3 parts.
Taking into consideration the current setup of Hamburg’s entrepreneurial ecosystem and its various entities, the first part will summarise salient points of the innovation strategy outlined by the City of Hamburg as well as key elements of the nextMedia.Hamburg initiative’s activities by which the regional government aims to attain its goals.
The second part takes relevant aspects of the outlined strategy and activities and reviews them from an academic perspective, considering arguments presented by Shane (2009), Audio et al. (2007), Morris et al. (2015), and Brown & Mawson (2015).
The third part draws on research findings to classify the outlined policy agenda and its measures to support the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Hamburg and discusses them in regards to Regional Innovation Systems (RIS) analysed by Moutinho et al. (2015) and the Triple Helix Approach (Ranga and Etzkowitz 2016) to asses their possible impact on the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Hamburg.
Results
This thesis makes 4 contributions. Foremost, several disconnects between local entrepreneurship policy in Hamburg and academic literature on entrepreneurship policy are explored by analysing both the regional innovation strategy and nextMedia.Hamburg initiative’s documents and activities. Additionally it is shown how relevant scientific findings have not been taken into consideration despite collaboration with research facilities at local universities.
Third, it is illustrated how the activities to nurture entrepreneurial activity by the nextMedia.Hamburg initiative lack a connection to actionable metrics to successfully measure results and adapt for change. As a fourth contribution, this thesis draws on common challenges in developing regional entrepreneurship policy and proposes closer collaboration between the research community, industry and policy makers.
Source: Recke, M. P., 2016. Hamburg’s Entrepreneurial Ecosystem And The Next Media Initiative – Public Policy Towards Entrepreneurship.
Next Steps
I plan to take this research further in the future. Considering research findings on entrepreneurship policy effectiveness, emerging new transdisciplinary approaches can be utilized to develop a better understanding of underlying mechanics within entrepreneurial ecosystems and their impact on economic development.
For more information, feel free to contact me directly.
