ABSTRACT
This study examines a layered entrepreneurial ecosystem in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Chattanooga has recently received media attention through its Gig—the high-speed, one-gigabit fiber internet service—which is identified as the backbone of the Gig infrastructure as well as its environment for entrepreneurship deeply rooted with multiple layers of supporting organizations with decades of efforts in community and economic development in the area. More specifically, we identified three layers of intertwined supporting organizations: (1) two philanthropic foundations, (2) four direct entrepreneurship support organizations, and (3) four organizations in the public sector, including the mayor’s office. The analysis of these major support organizations not only makes a good list of “ingredients” but also provides implications for the “recipe” in the context of the ecosystem of entrepreneurship through the complex web of relationships between each layer and each organization. The objective of this paper is to analyze those “recipe” roles that mayors could possibly play in the context of promoting entrepreneurship ecosystem.
