Since 1989, the former communist Eastern European, Balkan region, and Baltic State transition economies have been extensively investigated by practitioners, policymakers, and researchers. Despite expectations of entrepreneurship as a key driver in these economies, existing research has not fully captured the mechanisms, phenomena, and pathways that enable or impede productive entrepreneurship in these emerging markets. This task remains particularly elusive due to the multiple levels at which these mechanisms operate. Therefore, this paper aims to do two things. First, it develops a three-element conceptual model based on existing developed economy entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) literature that illustrates the individual and combined effect of stakeholder alignment catalysts, entrepreneur mindset catalysts, and sociocultural catalysts in nurturing productive entrepreneurship. Second, it applies this model to systematically analyze transition economy research, identifying the combined multi-level effects of these key elements and mechanisms and how they can foster or hinder entrepreneurship. Although past research has broadly studied the three conceptual model perspectives individually, these findings offer new insights into the multi-level combined effects in the transition economy ecosystem context while also potentially applying to other emerging EEs in various states of evolution. The paper concludes with directions for future research to better understand the unique entrepreneurial challenges in these regions.
