Unhelpful help: the state of support programmes and the dynamics of entrepreneurship ecosystems in Ethiopia

Entrepreneurship support programmes are a major component of the entrepreneurship ecosystem. Through these programmes, stakeholders, often government-affiliated, aim to facilitate and enhance productive entrepreneurship practices within start-ups. However, the effectiveness of these support programmes is often considered in isolation from other entrepreneurship ecosystem domains, ignoring how the programmes impact the dynamics of the entrepreneurship ecosystem as a whole. This paper investigates how the structure and implementation of entrepreneurship support programmes in Ethiopia influence the entrepreneurial behaviours of firms within the ecosystem, thus extending previous research that has questioned the effectiveness of entrepreneurship support programmes in producing productive entrepreneurial ecosystems. Through a qualitative research methodology, consisting of 36 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with firm founders in the manufacturing sector in Ethiopia, we show that entrepreneurship support programmes that do not prioritize innovative and competitive firms when distributing resources, can dissuade firms from being entrepreneurial and pushing forward in the market. In the absence of competition-based resource distribution, firms focus on their survival rather than taking risks to expand their operations and this may impede the effort to create successful entrepreneurial ecosystems. Based on our findings, we offer a more pragmatic role for support programmes in creating entrepreneurial ecosystems within developing economies.