| Summary: | Institutional theory has been widely applied to the study of entrepreneurship. Based on the current understanding of the institutional gap, we suggest that the relationship between institutions and entrepreneurship in emerging economies is reminiscent of the Face of Janus. Janus is a mythological figure with two faces, one looking backward and the other looking forward. Therefore, he is associated with transition and the chaos connected with the ambiguous relationship between the past and the future. This ambiguity may be seen as characteristic of entrepreneurship in emerging economies. In other words, the Face of Janus that looks backward corresponds to the institutional void, and the face that looks forward corresponds to stimulus policies that promote high-impact entrepreneurs. In this article, we comparatively discuss two case studies in Brazil and Russia. In Brazil, the Agency for Innovation’s (Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos – FINEP) INOVAR program while in Russia the Skolkovo Foundation. This article contributes to the entrepreneurship literature by advancing the concept of the institutional void in the context of emerging economies and by identifying strategies to develop high-impact entrepreneurship in two countries that have received little attention in previous articles.
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