30, September 2026

In 2026 THECIS celebrates its 25th anniversary. To celebrate this, we are running a 25th Anniversary Blog series where we ask prominent individuals to write a blog to provide perspective on a topic related to innovation and entrepreneurship. This Blog is by Dr. Chad Saunders. Dr. Saunders is an Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Haskayne School of Business and holds and adjunct appointment with the Cumming School of Medicine where he serves as the theme lead for Integrative Innovation Ecosystem Support (w21c.org).  Chad is the Senior Research Fellow with the Centre for Innovation Studies (thecis.ca) and deputy leader with the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) Canada (gemconsortium.org).  Chad’s research focuses on entrepreneurial support, entrepreneurial careers and the role of entrepreneurship in fostering productivity.  

Blog 112: Canada Is an Entrepreneurial Nation. So Why Aren’t More Firms Growing?

What 25 years of entrepreneurship research tells us about Canada’s next innovation challenge.

As The Centre for Innovation Studies (THECiS) celebrates its 25th anniversary, it is worth asking what we have learned about entrepreneurship in Canada—and, more importantly, what we need to understand next.

Canada does not appear to suffer from a shortage of entrepreneurs. Since THECiS became the Canadian lead for the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) in 2013, GEM Canada has documented entrepreneurship nationally, provincially and among groups including women and youth. More than 30 reports later, a consistent picture has emerged: Canadians are remarkably entrepreneurial.

Yet this creates a puzzle. If Canada has so much entrepreneurial activity, why do concerns about productivity, innovation and globally competitive firms remain so persistent?

Perhaps we need to shift the question from “How do we create more entrepreneurs?” to “How do we help entrepreneurs successfully navigate entrepreneurial careers?”

Starting a business is only the beginning

Entrepreneurship policy has traditionally devoted considerable attention to encouraging start-ups. But start-up activity is not synonymous with economic impact. Most new businesses remain small, many disappear, and relatively few experience substantial growth.

THECiS research on high-growth firms illustrates how complicated growth can be. High-growth firms contribute importantly to employment, productivity and innovation, yet high growth is often episodic rather than a permanent characteristic of firms. Only a minority experience repeated high-growth periods, making tomorrow’s high-growth firms extremely difficult to identify in advance.

Simply trying to “pick winners” is therefore unlikely to be enough. We need to understand the conditions that allow entrepreneurs to progress.

Entrepreneurs don’t succeed alone

This connects with something my colleagues and I have studied for many years: entrepreneurship is fundamentally a process of resource mobilization.

Entrepreneurs may recognize extraordinary opportunities but still require financing, knowledge, employees, customers, legitimacy, mentors, professional advice and connections to realize them.

No entrepreneur possesses all these resources.

That is why entrepreneurial ecosystems matter.

Canada has developed extensive support infrastructure: incubators, accelerators, economic-development agencies, universities, financial institutions, government programs and mentors. But perhaps we have been asking the wrong question about these ecosystems.

Rather than asking how much support exists, we should ask whose needs it fits, when, and why?

A first-time founder, an experienced entrepreneur scaling internationally, an entrepreneur balancing venture and caregiving obligations, and a researcher commercializing a technology may operate in the same ecosystem while requiring very different support. Their needs may also change dramatically as their businesses, careers and lives evolve.

Counting programs, participants or dollars spent therefore tells us surprisingly little about whether an entrepreneurial ecosystem is working.

From support availability to support fit

This suggests an important research and policy challenge for Canada’s next decade.

We need to understand not simply whether entrepreneurs receive support, but whether available support corresponds to what they actually need at particular points in their entrepreneurial journeys.

My research program is culminating in the concept of Dynamic Entrepreneurial Support Fit (DESF), which concerns the evolving correspondence between entrepreneurs’ changing needs and the resources, relationships and institutional supports they can actually access.

This perspective changes the questions we ask. What happens when an entrepreneur’s needs suddenly change? Can the ecosystem recognize those changes? Can it connect the entrepreneur with appropriate resources? How quickly can a mismatch between needs and support be corrected? And what happens when that mismatch persists?

These questions become especially important when we recognize entrepreneurship as a career rather than simply an event. People combine entrepreneurship with employment, move among ventures, experience disruption, exit and sometimes return. Gender, caregiving, socioeconomic circumstances, geography and age may also shape both what entrepreneurs need and their ability to access it. At the same time, artificial intelligence is now adding another potential source of entrepreneurial support—and potentially another source of inequality.

Building the evidence we now need

Answering these questions requires moving beyond cross-sectional snapshots.

The next step should be to follow entrepreneurs over time, establishing their support needs and circumstances before changes occur and then observing what happens when their careers, ventures or lives change. Regular measurements can reveal whether support fit deteriorates, persists or is restored and whether those trajectories influence learning, well-being, innovation, persistence, growth, exit and re-entry.

This is the foundation of a new five-year research program I am developing for a SSHRC Insight Grant. Building on GEM Canada’s population-level evidence, the research would follow a large Canadian panel of entrepreneurs longitudinally, combining repeated comprehensive assessments with short quarterly check-ins and targeted follow-ups when important changes occur. Qualitative research and comparisons among entrepreneurial support contexts would help explain not only whether support fit matters, but how and why it changes.

The goal is ultimately practical as well as theoretical, that is to help governments and support organizations move from measuring the supply of entrepreneurial support toward measuring the responsiveness of entrepreneurial ecosystems.

The next 25 years

Over its first 25 years, THECIS has helped establish an evidence base for understanding Canadian entrepreneurship and innovation. Its next 25 years offer an opportunity to go deeper.

Canada does not simply need more entrepreneurs. We need entrepreneurial ecosystems capable of recognizing heterogeneous and changing needs and helping people access appropriate resources when those needs arise.

After 25 years of studying who begins the entrepreneurial journey, the next frontier is understanding—and improving—what happens next.

The challenge is no longer simply creating more entrepreneurship. It is creating the conditions that help more entrepreneurs successfully navigate the opportunities they identify.