The new playground: measuring digital entrepreneurial ecosystem embeddedness

Purpose
This study aims to develop and validate the construct of digital entrepreneurial ecosystem embeddedness (DEEE) to better understand how startups interact with and integrate into both the digital and physical dimensions of digital entrepreneurial ecosystems. It responds to a gap in embeddedness research, which often overlooks the hybrid, ecosystem-level configuration of digital–physical infrastructures and the balance between structural constraints and entrepreneurial agency.

Design/methodology/approach
The study adopts a mixed-methods approach. Study 1 analyzes interviews with founders and executives of digital startups in a digital entrepreneurial ecosystem to identify the dimensions of DEEE. Study 2 develops and validates a DEEE scale using two rounds of survey data (n = 500), applying exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory composite analysis. Nomological validity is assessed by testing the relationship between DEEE and startup growth.

Findings
DEEE is conceptualized as a second-order formative construct composed of two dimensions: geographical embeddedness and digital embeddedness. Findings demonstrate that both dimensions contribute uniquely to a startup’s embeddedness within digital entrepreneurial ecosystems and DEEE is positively and significantly associated with startup growth.

Originality/value
DEEE extends embeddedness theory to digital entrepreneurial ecosystems by conceptualizing embeddedness as a dual-domain, ecosystem-level and agentically enacted configuration. It offers a validated formative measurement for future research.