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OSE Galaxy
Research programme

Open hypotheses, open data, open to co-authors.

The OSE research programme turns a base of 60,600+ qualified actors in 150+ countries into testable claims about how ecosystems are cultivated, governed and made inclusive — and shares the data needed to challenge them.

5
Hypotheses under test
4/5
Replicated on the OSE base
14
Observed indicators
10+
Years of longitudinal data
Axes

Six research axes

One base, one framework, six questions.

Cultivated order (COTEE)

Regimes of enforcement, the urban module, and the overlay gradient. The integrative Level 1 — hypotheses H1 to H5.

H1–H5111 countriespress panel

Meta-organizational governance

Architecture × substance: coverage, differentiation, turnover, density, redundancy and the three coordination mechanisms (normative · resource · platform).

JBVI 2026CI · FDI · SRI · EES

Gender and inclusion

The Aligned Gender Index (53 countries, three dimensions) crossed with women-focused support supply. Why the correlation with density is weak, and what that implies for programme design.

AGIAfDB / UNECA alignment

Elements versus profiles (AEEI)

Stam's ten elements as measured by the AEEI on 54 countries, re-read conditionally through COTEE — the composite as a ranking device, the profile as the diagnostic.

Stam & van de Ven7 pillars

Level 3 — the entrepreneur interface

Affiliation, cross-affiliation and venture-level outcomes. Not yet instrumentable: needs venture-level data — the object of the call for co-authors below.

Plannedventure-level data

Methods and data quality

Requalification pipelines, 14 observed indicators, longitudinal press panels, network methods (Louvain, centralities, co-occurrence) at continental scale.

14 indicators10+ years
Hypotheses

H1–H5 and their replication status

Claim, result on the OSE base, status. Updated as the base grows; reference values from the paper are quoted alongside.

  1. H1Replicated

    A profile, not a score

    The components of an ecosystem do not correlate and no single configuration is sufficient — an ecosystem must be read as a conditional profile.

    Result · α = 0.001 between components on the OSE base; typology replicated (43 apparatus-builders · 68 endowment-based; paper 58 / 55; bootstrap stability ARI 0.631).

    Replicated on 111 countries

  2. H2Replicated

    Enforcement is necessary

    Rule enforcement is a necessary condition for venture creation: no ecosystem creates at scale where rules do not bind.

    Result · Necessity consistency 0.854 (threshold 0.80), coverage 0.775.

    Replicated (fsQCA necessity)

  3. H3In progress

    The cultivation interaction

    Deliberate apparatus multiplies venture creation where rules bind and stays inert where they do not (apparatus × enforcement).

    Result · Interaction β = 0.23 (p 0.076) on the OSE base vs 0.396 in the paper; predicted creation 1.3 → 6.4 (apparatus builders), 1.5 → 4.0 (endowment-based). Effect on FDI +0.60 (p 0.051); no effect on patents or high-tech exports.

    Direction replicated · significance in progress

  4. H4Replicated

    The module is urban

    The relevant unit of an ecosystem is the urban module, not the national envelope.

    Result · 68.4 % of composition variance is within countries (paper: 72 %).

    Replicated (variance decomposition)

  5. H5Replicated

    The overlay gradient

    The effect of interface legibility (portals, one-stop shops) inverts with enforcement: helpful where rules are weak, harmful where they are applied.

    Result · Press panel, 19 countries, 2014–2023, 154 country-years: +0.12 (n.s.) under weak rules, −0.46 (significant) under enforced rules; interaction β −0.341 (t −3.82).

    Replicated (longitudinal press panel)

The full derivation — cultivation plane, orchestration cycle, worked example — is on the science page.

Publications

Papers and working papers

  • 2026Forthcoming

    Entrepreneurial Ecosystems as Meta-Organizations: Governance Architecture, Resource Orchestration, and Institutional Contingency

    Guéneau, G. et al. · Journal of Business Venturing Insights

    Ecosystem advantage is a governance achievement, not a resource endowment. Three coordination mechanisms (normative, resource-mediated, platform-based) and a multi-level architecture; longitudinal evidence from seven MENA ecosystems.

    Meta-organizationLevel 2
  • 2026Working paper

    The Cultivated Order Theory of Entrepreneurial Ecosystems — Seed · Soil · Gardener

    Guéneau, G. · Working paper — H5 replicated on a longitudinal press panel (19 countries, 2014–2023)

    The integrative Level 1 framework. Deliberate support pays off only where rules bind; the module is urban; interface legibility inverts with enforcement (H5).

    COTEELevel 1H1–H5
  • 2025Published

    Like a Diamond: Unveiling New Facets of Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Structure through RBV perspective

    Guéneau, G., Rouabeh, L., Chabaud, D. · Academy of Management Proceedings

    The three-scale analysis framework: resource configurations across organizations, VRIO-consistent bundles, and the measures that Expert now computes live on the OSE base.

    FrameworkRBVDOI →
  • 2023Published

    Sticky Ties: Quest for Structural Inter-organizational Configurations

    Guéneau, G., Chabaud, D., Chalus-Sauvannet, M.-C. · Technological Forecasting & Social Change

    Longitudinal network analysis across four territories: the best-performing ecosystems rely on strong, persistent ties with practical support actors.

    NetworksFoundationsDOI →
  • 2024Published

    A structural and processual approach to entrepreneurial ecosystems: the case of the Lyon area

    Guéneau, G., Chalus-Sauvannet, M.-C. · Management & Prospective (Gestion 2000)

    Structure and process of a regional ecosystem co-evolve — neither can be assessed in isolation.

    FoundationsRead →
  • 2022Doctoral thesis

    Entrepreneurial ecosystems structure: a measurement framework and first findings in African low-income countries

    Guéneau, G. (sup. Chabaud, D.) · Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne — doctoral dissertation

    The founding measurement framework of OSE: graph theory, web-scale data collection and configurational analysis in African contexts.

    FoundationsRead →
Collaborations

Who we work with

Independent review, external indices and open statistical sources — the framework is not closed.

Scientific council

Audretsch · Sarasvathy · Stam · Chabaud · Krueger review the framework and its replications. Council and board →

AEEI — africa.ecosystem.build

The Africa Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Index (Stam & van de Ven framework) is interfaced live in Expert and re-read through COTEE. Stam, E. et al. (2025). Measuring National Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in Africa. SSRN, https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5254687

World Bank open statistics

Worldwide Governance Indicators 2023 (rule enforcement), World Bank outcomes (new business density, FDI) and Gender Statistics (AGI inputs) feed the replications.

AfDB / UNECA alignment

The Aligned Gender Index follows the Africa Gender Index structure (economic, social, representation) so that ecosystem findings can be read next to continental gender reporting.

Call for co-authors

Where we need you

Four open problems, one dataset. Researchers who bring venture-level data, a regional replication or a method get co-authorship and data access.

  1. 01

    Consolidate H3

    The cultivation interaction is replicated in direction (β 0.23, p 0.076 vs 0.396 in the paper). Additional outcome series and instruments are welcome.

  2. 02

    Instrument Level 3

    Affiliation, cross-affiliation and venture outcomes: match OSE actors to venture registries or programme cohorts.

  3. 03

    Replicate beyond Africa–MENA

    The base already covers Europe and the Gulf; comparative regimes elsewhere would test the generality of the overlay gradient (H5).

  4. 04

    Gender mechanisms

    Why is the AGI weakly correlated with support density (ρ ≈ +0.13)? Programme-level data on women-focused structures are needed.

Citation

How to cite OSE data

For academic or policy work, cite the platform with the extraction date, and the relevant paper for the measure used.

@misc{ose_africa_2026,
  author = {Gu\'eneau, Gregory and OSE in Africa},
  title  = {OSE in Africa: live ecosystem intelligence platform},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://expert.ose.africa},
  note   = {Accessed YYYY-MM-DD}
}
FAQ

Questions researchers ask

What is the unit of observation in the OSE base?
A qualified support actor — incubator, accelerator, fund, agency, programme, university unit — described by 14 observed indicators, its boosts (14 canonical + 14 sectoral) and its ties. 60,694 actors across 153 countries at the last count.
Which hypotheses are replicated, and which are still in progress?
H1, H2, H4, H5 are replicated on the OSE base. H3 (the cultivation interaction) is replicated in direction, with significance still being consolidated as the base grows.
Why does OSE refuse to sum layers into one score?
Because the components do not correlate (α = 0.001): a sum would destroy the information. COTEE yields a profile read conditionally on the enforcement regime — the same apparatus has different meanings in different soils.
Can I recompute the published measures?
Yes. Every measure on Expert (CI, FDI, SRI, EES, the cultivation plane, the AGI, the AEEI snapshot) is computed live on the OSE base, exportable in CSV, and the public API exposes the underlying counts.
How do I access a working paper or the H5 press panel?
Write to contact@ose.africa with the paper you need; drafts are shared with researchers under a short citation agreement. The H5 panel (19 countries, 2014–2023, 154 country-years) is available for replication on request.
How is the OSE base kept clean?
Continuous requalification: each actor is re-checked by the pipeline, and defunct programmes, duplicates and ghost incubators are removed rather than kept as live. Measured, not declared.

Work with the data, not about it

Open the framework on Expert, or book a call to scope a joint study.

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The OSE Galaxy

One mission, three levers: build the science and practice of entrepreneurial ecosystems in Africa.

  1. Observewhat makes ecosystems work— OSE
  2. Trainthe builders who construct them— ADALIA
  3. Advancethe science that illuminates them— EERS