Distributed signal production in entrepreneurial ecosystems: evidence from Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa

Abstract Entrepreneurial ecosystem research has established that ecosystems influence venture development through networks, institutions, and support organizations, yet it offers limited explanation of how ecosystems shape the evaluative processes through which ventures gain access to finance and markets. This limitation is particularly consequential in emerging economies, where institutional conditions make conventional indicators of venture quality difficult to interpret, increasing uncertainty for resource gatekeepers. We address this gap by examining how entrepreneurial ecosystems shape venture credibility when the institutional conditions that normally make entrepreneurial signals legible, enforceable, and consequential are weak. Drawing on an abductive qualitative analysis of 174 semi-structured interviews with entrepreneurs, commercial banks, development finance institutions, corporate buyers, incubator and accelerator leaders, university entrepreneurship programmes, mentors, and public agencies across Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa, we develop a process model of distributed signal production. We show that entrepreneurial ecosystems function as distributed evaluative infrastructures that construct the evidentiary basis through which venture quality becomes credible to resource gatekeepers. Ecosystem actors accomplish this through three mechanisms: institutional signal substitution, structured signal amplification, and signal brokerage and conversion. These mechanisms explain how ecosystems construct, strengthen, and coordinate venture credibility while revealing why credible signals do not always translate into resource access under conditions of institutional weakness. Our findings advance entrepreneurial ecosystem literature by explaining how ecosystems shape evaluative processes rather than simply providing resources, extend signaling theory by demonstrating that signal production is distributed across heterogeneous ecosystem actors, and show how institutional conditions influence the conversion of credible signals into entrepreneurial opportunities.