Cooperation between knowledge-based institutions and start-up companies in Poland: an overview of the theoretical bacground for analysing the ecosystems

Start-up companies constitute a very “representative” phenomenon of the global economy and are its special “product”, since they act mainly in the Internet-related and high-technology branches and they are usually seen as born globals. Thus, the type of their activity, implemented business models, products and services offered are “embedded” into the networks, i.e. not only of the local, but rather international and global markets. The same concerns the relations of those firms with other actors of the ecosystems, among others: institutions of science. The problem of relations between start-ups (and business in general) and the knowledge-based institutions theoretically lies in the cross-section of different research domains and can be tackled from different perspectives and on various problematic levels. Taking such a multi-dimensional attitude in analysing the issue is consistent with the holistic approach in tackling and covering the various analytical problems of start-up ecosystems, commonly accepted in the literature (partly as an effect of a kind of consensus among the researchers). Taking into consideration the richness of the aspects and sub-issues which should be analysed when studying the problem of the cooperation between start-up companies in Poland and knowledge-based institutions, the hereby paper implicitly prepares “the ground” for more detailed empirical studies basing on the overview of the chosen literature from the behavioural economy and social network theories. Then, there was the Polish ecosystem characterized with special attention put to the knowledge-based institution.