Origins and Outcomes of Strategy in Nascent Ecosystems

Hannah, Douglas

doi:10.5465/ambpp.2015.98

Cited by 9 publications

(13 citation statements)

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“…Our framework suggests that, depending on the type of complementarity, we will get a different set of behaviors-and, likely, organizing structures too. Dynamics in nascent sectors, which have received increasing attention of late (e.g., Gurses & Ozcan, 2014;Hannah, 2014), may contrast with mature settings. As we move to increasingly dynamic settings, understanding which attitudes and approaches enable the identification and then success of new ecosystems, and which might lead to their demise (West & Wood, 2013), will be an intriguing area of new research.…”

Section: Ecosystem Collaborationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards a theory of ecosystems

Jacobides

Cennamo

Gawer

2018

Strategic Management Journal

1,866

920

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Research Summary: The recent surge of interest in "ecosystems" in strategy research and practice has mainly focused on what ecosystems are and how they operate. We complement this literature by considering when and why ecosystems emerge, and what makes them distinct from other governance forms. We argue that modularity enables ecosystem emergence as it allows a set of distinct yet interdependent organizations to coordinate without full hierarchical fiat. We show how ecosystems address multilateral dependences based on various types of complementarities-supermodular or unique, unidirectional or bidirectional-which determine the ecosystem's value-add. We argue that at the core of ecosystems lie nongeneric complementarities, and the creation of sets of roles that face similar rules. We conclude with implications for mainstream strategy and suggestions for future research. Managerial Summary: We consider what makes ecosystems different from other business constellations, including markets, alliances, or hierarchically managed supply chains. Ecosystems, we posit, are interacting organizations, enabled by modularity, not hierarchically managed, bound together by the nonredeployability of their collective investment elsewhere. Ecosystems add value as they allow managers to coordinate their multilateral dependence through sets of roles that face similar rules, thus obviating the need to enter into customized contractual agreements with each partner. We explain how different types of complementarities (unique or supermodular, generic or specific, uni-or bi-directional) shape ecosystems and offer a "theory of ecosystems" that can explain what they are, when they emerge, and why alignment occurs. Finally, we outline the critical factors affecting ecosystem emergence, evolution, and success-or failure.

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Section: Ecosystem Collaborationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards a theory of ecosystems

Jacobides

Cennamo

Gawer

2018

Strategic Management Journal

1,866

920

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For example, attempts to introduce new technologies at lower layers of the digital infrastructure (say, new chip standards to enable near-field communications for 'Internet of Things' applications) typically tend to enable such a large number of potential user-facing applications at upper layers that this can easily overwhelm prospective stakeholders. In turn, this may undermine the ecosystem champion's efforts to come up with a single vision that is compelling enough to crowd out alternative visions so as to align required stakeholders around it, while positioning itself to occupy the 'bottleneck' positions within the ecosystem to appropriate a disproportionate share of the collectively created value (Baldwin, 2015;Hannah & Eisenhardt, 2015;Jacobides & Tae, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While there is increasing research on the distinct governance and orchestration challenges presented by established innovation ecosystems (e.g., Dhanaraj & Parkhe, 2006;Nambisan & Sawhney, 2011;Wareham et al, 2014), much less work has addressed how prospective ecosystem stakeholders commit resources towards a de novo ecosystem creation effort and how they evolve a shared structure of interactions (Autio & Thomas, 2013;Hannah & Eisenhardt, 2015). Yet, committing to a de novo ecosystem creation effort is not a simple endeavor, as ecosystem value propositions typically depend on the concurrent availability of complementary inputs from varied, independent stakeholders (Ceccagnoli et al, 2012;Davis, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In short, for both B2C as well as (originally) business-tobusiness (B2B) firms, the literature sees the move to the ecosystem model as a form of business model innovation, for which companies have surprisingly good visibility on what to do and how to get there. This assumption of good visibility even seems to permeate work that explicitly problematizes the emergence of ecosystems, but which nonetheless samples on specific successful applications (e.g., Garnsey et al, 2008;Hannah & Eisenhardt, 2015;Soh, 2010).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Firms understand clearly which assets they can leverage in ecosystems and derive a concomitant design of technological and social interdependencies by selecting the right partners (Adner & Kapoor, 2010;Adner, 2012;Adner & Kapoor, 2016;Kapoor & Lee, 2013;Kapoor & Furr, 2015). Alternatively, they discover technologies and industry-level value systems or architectures as given sets of interdependencies in which they need to identify and occupy the strategic bottlenecks to attain control (Baldwin & Woodard, 2007;Baldwin, 2015;Hannah & Eisenhardt, 2015;Iansiti & Levien, 2004;Jacobides & Tae, 2015;Pagani, 2013) (arrow A). Having defined such control points for value capture, the firm can build an internal business case for resource investment and create a set of appropriate tactics (B).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Maneuvering in Poor Visibility: How Firms Play the Ecosystem Game when Uncertainty is High

Dattée

Alexy

Autio

2018

AMJ

366

384

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Abstract:Innovation ecosystems are increasingly regarded as important vehicles to create and capture value from complex value propositions. While current literature assumes these value propositions can be known ex-ante and an appropriate ecosystem design derived from them, we focus instead on generative technological innovations that enable an unbounded range of potential value propositions, hence offering no clear guidance to firms. To illustrate our arguments, we inductively study two organizations, each attempting to create two novel ecosystems around new technological enablers deep in their industry architecture. We highlight how ecosystem creation in such conditions is a systemic process driven by coupled feedback loops, which organizations must try to control dynamically: firms first make the switch to creating the ecosystem following an external pull to narrow down the range of potential applications; then need to learn to keep up with ecosystem dynamics by roadmapping and preempting, while simultaneously enacting resonance. Dynamic control further entails counteracting the drifting away of the nascent ecosystem from the firm's idea of future value creation and the sliding of its intended control points for value capture. Our findings shed new light on strategy and control in emerging ecosystems, and provide guidance to managers on playing the ecosystem game.

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Strategic leaders' ecosystem vision formation and digital transformation: A motivated interactional lens

Reuter,

Floyd

2023

Strategic Entrepreneurship

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Research SummaryThe question of why and how strategic leaders differ in the ecosystems they envision is central to firms' digital transformation. We unpack the cognitive microfoundations of how strategic leaders form their ecosystem vision—a mental model of a firm's multilateral complementarities with its partners to realize a value proposition. Our motivated interactional lens emphasizes the role of strategic leaders' cognitive motivation for shaping four interaction types with (prospective) partners: participatory, selective, collaborative, and reclusive. We theorize how these interactions shape the changes strategic leaders make in their mental models, and thus, to envision different levels and types of complementarities with (prospective) partners in the digital transformation. Our theory illuminates the roles of strategic leaders, their cognitive motivations, and social interactions in firms' ecosystem leadership.Managerial SummaryDigital transformation is an ecosystem challenge for incumbent firms. As part of their ecosystem leadership, strategic leaders need to form a vision of how to complement their value offerings with (prospective) partners' offerings. This vision, in turn, can affect the types of ecosystems they enact. We develop a theoretical model that emphasizes the role of strategic leaders' cognitive motivation for the interactions they engage in with (prospective) partners and for the types of ecosystem visions they form as a result.

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Origins and Outcomes of Strategy in Nascent Ecosystems

Cited by 9 publications

References 0 publications

Towards a theory of ecosystems

Towards a theory of ecosystems

Maneuvering in Poor Visibility: How Firms Play the Ecosystem Game when Uncertainty is High

Strategic leaders' ecosystem vision formation and digital transformation: A motivated interactional lens

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