Developing provincial innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystems: An analytical framework and practical lessons

This study develops a provincial-level analytical framework to address three common limitations in assessing innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystems: equating an ecosystem with a list of organizations, evaluating it primarily through inputs and events, and overlooking extra-provincial linkages. The study combines integrative theoretical synthesis, institutional and policy analysis, comparative case studies, and an application assessment using evidence from Nam Dinh Province, including a survey of 450 respondents, a survey of 200 respondents, and a two-round Delphi study. The proposed framework comprises six components: institutions and governance; stage-appropriate finance; human capital and knowledge; infrastructure and intermediaries; markets and networks; and culture and leadership. In Nam Dinh, the average score across nine conditions was 3.09 out of 5, with finance receiving the lowest score at 2.62 and exhibiting the largest priority-performance gap of 32.7 percentage points. The second Delphi round yielded Kendall’s W = 0.520 (p < 0.001). The findings support the argument that resources create value only when they can be identified, accessed, coordinated, and utilized at the appropriate time. Experiences from Da Nang, Binh Duong, and Quang Nam demonstrate that no single development model is universally applicable; instead, provinces should build on their distinctive assets and local challenges while strengthening coordination mechanisms, extra-provincial networks, first-customer opportunities, and milestone-based financing. The study also proposes a three-stage policy roadmap and a set of indicators based on actual project progression.