20.500.12556/DKUM-97772 Platform-mediated crisis policy and entrepreneurial ecosystem resilience evidence from Western Cape SMME support This article examines how platform-mediated crisis policy shaped inclusion and exclusion outcomes for small, medium, and micro enterprises (SMMEs) in the Western Cape during COVID-19. Integrating a market-failure perspective with entrepreneurial ecosystem theory, we present a theory-driven secondary analysis of 16 qualitative interviews and policy documents. We map five crisis-amplified failures—finance, markets, digital, institutions, and human capital—onto Isenberg’s six ecosystem domains and analyze how provincial interventions, particularly digital marketplaces, voucher schemes, and online coordination tools, functioned as governance mechanisms regulating access, visibility, and participation. The findings show that platform-mediated interventions accelerated coordination and digital market access but disproportionately benefited already connected firms, leaving institutional and inclusion gaps largely unresolved. We conceptualize sub-national crisis response as a form of platform governance and discuss implications for designing more inclusive digital policy infrastructures in middle-income contexts. COVID-19 platform governance digital marketplaces platform-mediated policy SME inclusion entrepreneurial ecosystems sub-national governance true false true Angleški jezik Angleški jezik Znanstveno delo 2026-04-13 11:38:59 2026-04-13 11:38:59 2026-04-14 03:09:31 0000-00-00 00:00:00 2026 0 0 22 str. 2 4 2026 0000-00-00 Zaloznikova Objavljeno NiDoloceno 2026-03-02 2026-04-10 2026-04-13 338.1:004.738.5 274981123 10.3390/platforms4020008 2813-4176 https://www.mdpi.com/2813-4176/4/2/8 1 9ac406d1-371c-11f1-bc3c-00155d0001a1 https://dk.um.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=205234 RAZ_Loubser_Strydom_Carin_2026.pdf RAZ_Loubser_Strydom_Carin_2026.pdf 1 0E2962832877758069E78F843C191D35 88121fe04d946f02d090e9bee4600532fb8f9187f9f9bfdaf1c9c38d5e79b283 cd051d94-371c-11f1-bc3c-00155d0001a1 https://dk.um.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=205235 Ekonomsko-poslovna fakulteta 0 0 0