Abstract

ABRAHAMS, Lucienne. Innovation Entanglement at Three South African Tech Hubs. AJIC [online]. 2020, vol.26, pp.1-29. ISSN 2077-7213.  http://dx.doi.org/10.23962/10539/30358.

This study explores innovation modalities at three South African tech hubs: Bandwidth Barn Khayelitsha and Workshop 17 in Cape Town, and the Tshimologong Digital Innovation Precinct in Johannesburg. The study finds that tech start-ups' ability to scale is generally enhanced by their participation in the hubs. Furthermore, it is found that scaling by start-ups, and by the tech hubs hosting them, is enhanced when they actively drive the terms of their "entanglement" with exogenous and endogenous factors and external entities-a conceptual framework first developed in an earlier study of university research linkages (Abrahams, 2016). This present study finds that innovation entanglement by the hubs and their start-ups allows them to work through the adversity and states of complexity prevalent in their innovation ecosystems.

Keywords : tech hubs; digital innovation; tech enablement; collaboration; knowledge creation; knowledge governance; complexity; innovation entanglement; South Africa.

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