<p>This study examines how key mechanisms within entrepreneurial ecosystems shape small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) growth in the creative industries of Oman. It focuses on how ecosystem constraints emerge from interactions among misaligned and weakly coordinated actors and structures, potentially contributing to maladaptive patterns and inertia. The complex adaptive systems theory is utilized to investigate how these elements co-evolve through evolutionary dynamics and feedback processes. 39 interviews were conducted with key institutional actors and entrepreneurs operating in Oman’s creative industries. The results show that Oman’s entrepreneurial ecosystem is shaped by fragmented and misaligned institutions, leading to informal self-organization and coordination failures among ecosystem actors. These misalignments create negative feedback loops that constrain SME growth. They also produce non-linear and unintended outcomes, influencing entrepreneurial behavior and competencies. In the long-term, these patterns become rooted through path dependence and institutional inertia, which hinder the ecosystem’s ability to change. This study provides new insight by utilizing both the entrepreneurial ecosystem perspective and complex adaptive systems framework to explain how adaptive and feedback led systems influence SME growth in creative industries within the Omani context. It also highlights how these dynamics can generate coordination failures, inertia, and maladaptive outcomes for SMEs in the creative industries.</p>