The Components of an Entrepreneurial City

An entrepreneurial city is a unified system, consisting of different elements designed and predicted accurately, and they work correctly together. There are two ways to identify these elements: the first way is the identification of elements based on entrepreneurs' and experts' ideas. Although this way gives precious information, because of not been tested in practice, it needs trial and error to achieve a successful entrepreneurial ecosystem. The other way is designing entrepreneurial ecosystem elements based on successful world ecosystems, and then, localizing the designed ecosystem according to every region's needs. Although this method needs some modifications over time, as is based on successful experiences, it may need less trial and error. This study aims to achieve entrepreneurial ecosystem elements by using the second approach. After selecting the four best entrepreneurial cities (Silicon Valley, New York, London, and Boston), the entrepreneurial ecosystem of these cities is studied through documentary study and qualitative content analysis. Then the elements are studied by a comparative study with the Boolean algebra method. Finally, two groups of elements are identified: the necessary components: economic and industrial architecture, culture, pioneer universities, entrepreneurship, and innovative governance; and contributing components: city infrastructure, pioneer organizations, and networking. In the next step, to rank the identified components, the TOPSIS method is used. Among contributing components, city infrastructure had the top score. All necessary components had the same score. This model can be used as a basis for designing an entrepreneurial city but may need localization for each region's needs.