Purpose: Increasing competition in global markets requires many countries to seek new growth sectors. In addition, the nature of competition is changing. This paper applies the business ecosystem concept and studies San Diego as a spatial health and life sciences ecosystem. The aim is to identify issues that should be considered in design of innovation policies and regional industry development.Design/methodology/approach: The research approach is built on a literature review of business ecosystems and spatial innovation. The empirical study is based on semistructured interviews, observations, and information gathering and verification during field research. Findings:The results include a description of the ecosystem structure and dynamics. This paper demonstrates the bottom-up nature of San Diego's health and life sciences ecosystem without a dominant lead actor, and presents prerequisites for fostering spatial ecosystems. Research limitations/implications:A single case may not be able to offer a generalized picture of this topic. However, the study raises several considerations for researchers and decision-makers involved in innovation policy design. Future work should extend the study and involve other spatial and substance contexts to compare findings and to pursue a more generic picture of innovation ecosystems and networks.Originality/value: This paper demonstrates that applying the concept of business ecosystems to the spatial context provides new insights in terms of dynamic mechanisms and factors contributing to economic growth in a particular location. Understanding how to facilitate the creation of successful spatial ecosystems is in the focal point of innovation policies.

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Innovation-driven enterprises (IDEs) engage with various stakeholders during new product development and commercialisation. Spatial ecosystems in which these enterprises operate provide them with the local business environment for new innovation development. Our study analyses IDEs' stakeholders in two spatial information and communication technology (ICT) business ecosystems: one in San Diego, California, USA and the other in Oulu, Finland. The study analyses the stakeholders' presence and their roles to support innovation. The critical stakeholders for supporting innovation-driven enterprises, such as providers of different forms of capital and research institutes, are identified. Our findings suggest that IDEs should exploit the spatial ecosystems by interacting with various stakeholders and by gaining access to local resources to create new innovations. The results of the study are beneficial both for managers of new innovation-driven ventures and decision-makers designing and implementing innovation policies.

Many stages of growth models have been introduced to clarify management priorities during the early stages of business growth. However, many of these models are conceptual and universal, providing only limited benefits to specific industries and business contexts. The early stages of technology-based ventures have attracted broad interest, while less attention has been paid to the early stages of service-based firms. However, in recent years, interest in service-based businesses, as well as servitisation, has grown. This literature-based study explores and compares the early stages of growth in service-based and technology-based firms. On one hand, this study condenses the basic characteristics of recent empirical studies on the early stages of technology-and service-based firms. On the other, this study clarifies the central themes, sequential patterns and central differences in the early stages of service-and technology-based firms. This study pinpoints the importance of contextual understanding related to the early stages of business growth and encourages the scholars towards bridging the contextual gaps of this stream of literature.