Entrepreneurial discoveries. Triple-helix and open partnerships: configuring a transformative innovation system

Iotzov, V. (2026) Entrepreneurial discoveries. Triple-helix and open partnerships: configuring a transformative innovation system. PhD thesis, University of Reading. doi: 10.48683/1926.00130503

Abstract/Summary

This thesis contributes to the literature on transformative innovation policy by develop ing and empirically testing a conceptual framework that recognises the role of commons based entrepreneurial discovery processes in addressing the grand societal challenges. Epistemologically rooted in evolutionary economics, it proposes a layered model of transformative innovation systems that reconciles mission-oriented and transition-ori ented research streams with concerns raised in Austrian economics and public-choice traditions. The central proposition is that socio-technical regime change unfolds through epistemic reconfigurations of regional innovation systems, accounting for commons based entrepreneurial discoveries. In triple-helix projects, public-sector entrepreneurs tap into commons-based technological experiments of extra-regional innovators and amplify proto-entrepreneurial signals within their regional innovation systems, enabling entrepreneurial discoveries and mobilising firms along normative trajectories. Quantita tively, four hypotheses are tested using a novel set of indicators at the NUTS-3 level. These examine how commons-based entrepreneurial discovery processes and regional missions shape firms’ absorptive capacity for societal innovation, and how this, in turn, predicts the appropriation of knowledge valuable for emerging markets. A two-stage instrumental variable regression isolates the component of absorptive investment plau sibly free from vested-interest distortions, addressing public-choice concerns and strengthening causal interpretation. The results show statistically and economically sig nificant positive effects at both stages, revealing a causal chain from commons-based entrepreneurial discovery processes to tipping points, where self-sustaining market pro cesses harvest both commercial and social value along normative innovation trajectories. Qualitatively, a sequence of causal tests is applied to paired quasi-counterfactuals of par allel initiatives in urban mobility. The findings show that commons-based experimenta tion in triple-helix projects, together with public-sector entrepreneurship stimulating open partnerships, are both necessary for amplifying proto-entrepreneurial signals from the commons. These signals, in turn, enable entrepreneurial discoveries and mark tipping points in socio-technical regimes. The empirical results confirm the need for transform ative innovation policy to balance centralised normative missions with bottom-up entre preneurial discovery processes.

Item Type	Thesis (PhD)
URI	https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/id/eprint/130503
Identification Number/DOI	10.48683/1926.00130503
Divisions	Henley Business School > Leadership, Organisations, Behaviour and Reputation
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