INTRODUCTION

Innovation is now the buzzword in the world of business, and entrepreneurship is an area critical for global economic development particularly in developing countries. Innovation and entrepreneurship are not confined to start-ups and new ventures, but rather, they allude to dynamic and holistic processes in all aspects of social and economic development. Thornton, Ribeiro-Soriano and Urbano (2011) highlighted that entrepreneurship is on the rise due to a number of cultural and economic factors. For most entrepreneurs, innovation is not just about creating new ideas but making those ideas happen. While invention is an important source of technology (Weber, Dixon and Llorente 1993), Schumpeter (1934) asserted that innovation is more than invention, and technological innovation can help to create opportunities and give entrepreneurs access to a wider swath of the population.

The complementary relationship between entrepreneurship and innovation can be explained via two perspectives. Schumpeter’s (1934) notion of business in innovation described how entrepreneurs’ new ideas can lead to the overhaul of a market and link them to economic growth and development (“creative destruction”). On the other hand, Kirzner (1973) looked at how entrepreneurs find gaps, recognize opportunities and make the most of the opportunity by trial and error and market feedback. No doubt that the world today is dominated by innovative ideas and technology, but innovation alone cannot facilitate entrepreneurship success because success does not take place in a vacuum. Entrepreneurs require a healthy entrepreneurial ecosystem comprising the mix of attitudes, resources and infrastructure to grow and sustain. It has been years since the Global Entrepreneurship Index ranked the United States of America top in the list because of its attractive ecosystem, showing that the success of entrepreneurship hinges on the context in which it operates.

In the context of oil and gas high income developing economies, entrepreneurship and innovation have continuously been an important agenda in their national economic development plans. Even more today, the role of entrepreneurship and innovation intensifies as the reduction in oil prices and their volatility pose strong challenges to these economies. While it may be a blessing to have an abundant supply of natural resources, in the long run, diversified economies perform better than mono-sector economies (Cherif, Hasanov and Zhu 2016).