Identification and Classification of Policy Instruments to Enhance the Health of Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

In recent years, the issue of the health of entrepreneurial ecosystems has gained significant attention among researchers. The health of ecosystems refers to the robustness of ecosystems and maintaining their structure and function over time in the face of internal and external disturbances. It enhances the health level of an ecosystem, the guaranteed survival, and the better performance it demonstrates for entrepreneurs. However, adopting appropriate policies to enhance the health level of entrepreneurial ecosystems has received less attention from policymakers and researchers in this field. This research aims to identify and classify policy instruments to enhance the health level of entrepreneurial ecosystems in Iran. In this study, efforts have been made to identify policy instruments suitable for enhancing the health level of Iranian entrepreneurial ecosystems using interview and questionnaire tools. The final list of policy instruments has been extracted through expert opinions and statistical analyses. Subsequently, through the analysis of interrelationships and clustering of policy instruments, different classifications including policy instruments related to "Strengthening infrastructures" including 4 policy instruments to reform and stabilize social and macroeconomic policies, "Development of actors in the entrepreneurial ecosystem" including 4 policy instruments for the quantitative development of the entities and actors of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, "Diversification of the entrepreneurial ecosystem" "including 6 policy instruments to diversify business domains in the entrepreneurial ecosystem and "demand development" including 5 distinct policy instruments to strengthen finance of the entrepreneurial ecosystem can affect the enhancement of the health level of Iran's entrepreneurial ecosystem. The results of this research indicate that these distinct policy classifications can impact enhancing the health level of Iranian entrepreneurial ecosystems.