Esteban Lafuente is a Professor in the School of Business at the Costa Rica Institute of Technology (ITCR). I completed my PhD. in Business Economics at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB, Spain) in 2010. Between 2010 and 2024, I served as Associate Professor in the Department of Management at the Polytechnic University of Catalunya (UPC Barcelona Tech).

In March 2026, I was awarded the title of Doctor et Professor Honoris Causa by the University of Pécs, Hungary, in recognition of my scientific achievements and long-standing academic collaboration with its Faculty of Business and Economics.

I am Editor of Small Business Economics journal and co-Editor in Chief of TEC Empresarial journal. I also served as Senior Researcher in the Catalan entrepreneurship observatory, Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM-Catalunya) between 2009 and 2013. During this period I co-organized, with Prof. Yancy Vaillant (TBS), the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Research Conference on Entrepreneurship and Economic Development in Barcelona (June 2013).

My research work is mostly devoted to the economic analysis of organizations, with special emphasis on models of production economics, digitalization, and organizational behavior. In another research stream, I am interested in work safety practices and policies, and their economic benefits from an organizational and territorial perspective. My research has been published in a variety of journals, including among others Research Policy, Journal of Product Innovation Management, Small Business Economics, British Journal of Management, Regional Studies, International Journal of Production Economics, Journal of Productivity Analysis, Safety Science, Journal of Safety Research, Applied Psychology: An International Review, Journal of Technology Transfer, Journal of Business Research, and Entrepreneurship & Regional Development.

I have published, jointly with Zoltan Acs (George Mason University) and László Szerb (University of Pécs), three books: The Entrepreneurial Ecosystem: A Global Perspective (2023: Palgrave Macmillan), and the 2018 and 2022 edition of the Global Entrepreneurship and Development Index (Springer). In these books we provide a rich understanding of entrepreneurial ecosystems, and present a detailed look at specific policies that contribute to improving the quality and scale of territories’ entrepreneurial ecosystem around the globe. I also published, together with my colleague Ferran Vendrell (University of Birmingham), a book on Entrepreneurship (2014: Emprender en la era digital: Tres casos de emprendedores con teoría integrada) where we seek to demystify and enhance our understanding on the entrepreneurial phenomenon and the challenges that entrepreneurs are faced with through three in-depth case studies. Finally, I received the Best Paper Award of the Iberoamerican Academy of Management in 2009 (Buenos Aires, Argentina).

My research work is mostly devoted to the economic analysis of organizations, with special emphasis on models of production economics, digitalization, and organizational behavior. In another research stream, I am interested in work safety practices and policies, and their economic benefits from an organizational and territorial perspective. My research has been published in a variety of journals, including among others Research Policy, Journal of Product Innovation Management, Small Business Economics, British Journal of Management, Regional Studies, International Journal of Production Economics, Journal of Productivity Analysis, Safety Science, Journal of Safety Research, Applied Psychology: An International Review, Journal of Technology Transfer, Journal of Business Research, and Entrepreneurship & Regional Development.