Innovation Ecosystems

Abstract

The concept of an ‘innovation ecosystem’ is increasingly used to describe collectives of heterogeneous, yet complementary organizational actors who jointly create some kind of system-level output, analogous to an ‘ecosystem service’ that natural ecosystems facilitate, and one that extends beyond the outputs and activities of any individual participant of the ecosystem. Due to its attractiveness and elasticity, the innovation ecosystem concept has been applied to a wide range of phenomena by a variety of scholarly perspectives, alongside with seemingly related concepts such as ‘business ecosystems’, ‘technology ecosystems’, ‘platform ecosystems’, ‘entrepreneurial ecosystems’, and ‘knowledge ecosystems’. This conceptual and application heterogeneity has contributed to conceptual and terminological confusion, which threatens to undermine the utility of the concept in supporting cumulative insight.

In this chapter we seek to re-introduce some order into this conceptual heterogeneity by re-viewing how the concept has been applied to variably overlapping phenomena and by highlighting key terminological and conceptual inconsistencies and their sources. We find that conceptual inconsistency on the ecosystem terminology relates to two key dimensions: the ‘unit’ of analysis and the type of ‘ecosystem service’—i.e., the innovative output collectively generated. We then argue that although there is considerable heterogeneity in application, the concept nevertheless offers promise to support insights that are distinctive relative to other concepts that describe collectives of organizations, such as those of ‘industry’, ‘supply chain’, and ‘network’. We also find that despite extant proliferation, the concept nevertheless describes collectives that are distinctive in terms of participant heterogeneity, the nature of ecosystem outputs, the forms and characteristics of participant interdependence, and the modes of ecosystem governance.

Based on our identified dimensions of conceptual heterogeneity, we offer a typology of the different ecosystem concepts, thereby helping re-organize this proliferating domain. The typology consists of three distinct system-level outputs—value propositions, business model innovations, and knowledge—and three research emphases that resonate with alternative ‘units’ of analysis—community dynamics, output co-generation, and interdependence management. Together, these al-low us to clearly differentiate between the concepts of innovation ecosystems, business ecosystems, platform ecosystems, technology ecosystems, entrepreneurial ecosystems and knowledge ecosystems. We conclude with a consideration of innovation ecosystem dynamics, highlighting the important role digitalization has for ecosystems generally, and reviewing the implications of our model for ecosystem emergence, competition, coevolution and resilience.

Keywords: ecosystem; innovation ecosystem; business ecosystem; platform ecosystem; technology ecosystem; entrepreneurial ecosystem; knowledge ecosystem

JEL Classification: M1, M10