Sustainable Growth Approaches: Quadruple Helix Approach for Turning Brașov into a Startup City

Abstract

The aims of this study are to identify large companies’ role in stimulating local entrepreneurship, and higher education institutions’ contribution of fostering entrepreneurial activity in order to achieve an innovative ecosystem and turning Brasov into a startup city. To address the research questions, exploratory research was conducted among 18 representatives of companies and public institutions active in Brasov city, Romania. The findings confirm that large companies engage startups by collaborative models being also available to outsource a series of activities to entrust the startups with. These collaborations bring many opportunities to startups to scale up faster by using large companies’ resources and the routes to the markets on which they operate. Furthermore, this research reveals the need for a better synergy between education, research, and practice and, consequently, an improvement of the academic curriculum. It also exemplifies the need for joined theory and practice to influence policymakers in developing policies to create a sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystem. The empirical results have implications for both the entrepreneurship literature and entrepreneurship policies.