From behind the scenes to the forefront: how do intermediaries lead the construction of international innovation ecosystems?

While previous literature on international innovation ecosystems (IIEs) construction focuses on the leading role of high-tech corporations, the intermediaries which were thought of as playing auxiliary and supporting roles have long been ignored. This study intends to fill this gap by exploring how an intermediary organisation initiates and constructs an IIE as a focal actor from the perspective of social capital. Combining a longitudinal case study and grounded theory, we investigate the construction process of the China-Israel innovation ecosystem established by Infinity Group (IG), an Israeli private equity firm with a base in China that acts as a leading role in connecting innovation cooperation between the two countries. Our findings show that structural capital acts as a fundamental element from the emergence of the ecosystem to its mature stage. Specifically, this study suggests that culture embeddedness influences the diffusion of trust, and trust further leads the network change to a small-world structure, during which intermediaries can act as leading actors to overcome the challenges during the IIE building process. Our study enriches the literature on international innovation ecosystem and provides some practical implications for the construction of intermediary-oriented IIEs.