Collaboration within a startup ecosystem - Enhancing entrepreneurial activities through collaboration in the startup ecosystem of Sydney, Australia

Abstract

Background and Problem Formulation: There has been a growth in the entrepreneurship ecosystem of Australia due to the increasing support that aims to enhance entrepreneurial activities. However, Australia still has to overcome challenges to improve entrepreneurial outcomes. A possible solution for this could be to enhance collaboration between stakeholders. Purpose: This study aims to investigate the forms of collaboration within a startup ecosystem. More specifically, it looks at how the key stakeholders evaluate existing and potential collaboration that enhance entrepreneurial activities. Limitations and Delimitations: This study focuses solely on the startup ecosystem of Sydney, Australia. It has only investigated the topic from a social capital and activity based perspective, not including financial or governmental incentives. Only 10 people were interviewed, making it less possible to consider all stakeholder needs in general. Methodology: This is a multiple case study. Ten semi-structured interviews have been conducted with stakeholders from the ecosystem. Before conducting the interviews an interview guide was set up as a tool for the interviews to keep them within the given topic. The interviews were then transcribed and broken down using thematic analysis. Results and Conclusion: This study provides an evaluation of the collaboration types in terms of the quality and quantity of the influenced entrepreneurial activities. There are preferred and desired collaboration forms, but also forms that are not considered beneficial or needed by the internal stakeholders.