Need of Entrepreneurial Ecosystem for Serial Entrepreneurs in Pakistan

Abstract

Institutional support for serial entrepreneurs remains an underexplored area within Pakistan's entrepreneurial ecosystem, and this study addresses that gap by investigating what institutional mechanisms exist for serial entrepreneurs and where critical structural deficiencies persist. This study employs a qualitative phenomenological design, collecting primary data through semi-structured interviews with seven purposively selected expert informants representing national incubation centers, government policy bodies, financial institutions, chambers of commerce, and private consultants, three of whom are active serial entrepreneurs in dual institutional roles, providing practitioner-embedded perspectives alongside institutional viewpoints. The findings reveal a functionally active yet structurally misaligned ecosystem in which no formal institutional pathway targets serial entrepreneurship as a distinct support category. General-purpose institutions, including the National Incubation Centers, SMEDA, and the Bank of Punjab, provide essential but non-scalable support, while informal social capital mechanisms such as kinship networks (Baradi) and resourceful improvisation (Jugaar) substitute for absent formal provision in ways that are inequitable and invisible to policy design. This study introduces the concept of a Serial Entrepreneurship Support Void at the transition stage between venture failure-exit and new venture re-entry and proposes the Institutional Ecosystem Support Model for Serial Entrepreneurs in Compound-Uncertainty Environments as its primary theoretical contribution. Three theoretical propositions are advanced and situated within comparative evidence from Nigeria, Egypt, Vietnam, and Bangladesh, positioning the study within a broader emerging economy scholarship. The findings indicate that serial entrepreneurship must be recognized as a distinct institutional demand category within Pakistan's SME policy framework, and that ecosystem resilience under compound uncertainty requires purposefully designed re-entry programming rather than expanded general startup support.