This paper argues that the formation and transformation of local entrepreneurial governances can be understood as a process of local responses to challenges presented by global economic restructuring. Two kinds of local responses are theoretically identified. At the structure level, local entrepreneurial governances happen when places are embedded in the situation of competition between cities and regions. At the agent level, the emergence of local entrepreneurial governances requires local actors who pursue their own political and economic interests. The theoretical framework, what I term ‘territorial restructuring process’, is empirically explained by the context of the West and China.