Entrepreneurship & Innovation Research Seminar – Juan Hwang, PhD Student

Title: How Entrepreneurs Develop Collective Strategies for Institutional Work in their City

Date:  19 November 2025

Time: 13:30- 14:30

Venue: NUBS.2.13

If you would like to attend, please register using the following link:

How Entrepreneurs Develop Collective Strategies for Institutional Work in their City

Speaker: Juan Hwang, PhD student in Economic Geography (CURDS)

Abstract:

This study aims to examine how micro-level entrepreneurs influence macro-level local institutions (i.e., institutional arrangements), ultimately contributing to the emergence of an entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) and a new industrial path in a city. Contemporary urban and regional development studies have emphasised the role of entrepreneurship and institutions. However, there persists a strong belief that formal and informal institutions predominantly shape entrepreneurship, leaving little space for human agency. Moreover, a dynamic perspective on the relationship between institutions and entrepreneurship is lacking, acknowledging the stable and persistent nature of institutions. Entrepreneurs disrupt established structures by creating novel flows and directions among organisations and resources; moreover, their interpretations and impacts on local institutions change throughout their life cycles, which call for continual adjustment in local institutional arrangements. To address these issues, this study investigates the dynamic, recursive interaction between entrepreneurs and institutions, drawing on the notion of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, in which entrepreneurs create value not only in the market but also in the framework conditions. By comparing the two Korean (former) industrial cities from the late 1990s to the present, this study can also highlight the key temporal and geographical conditions in this process.