Unpacking the innovation ecosystem construct: Evolution, gaps and trends

By Leonardo Augusto de Vasconcelos Gomes, Ana Lucia Figueiredo Facin, Mario Sergio Salerno, Rodrigo Kazuo Ikenami. Technological forecasting & social change, 2016

669 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract The innovation ecosystem construct has emerged as a promising approach in the literature on strategy, innovation and entrepreneurship. It draws upon former business ecosystem literature. However, the term innovation ecosystem has been employed in very polysemic and sometimes competing ways. Many adjectives used with reference to innovation ecosystems render the consolidation of the construct more difficult - which its characteristics, boundaries and relation with other, to some extent competing, constructs, such as supply chain and value chain are. To clarify concepts, to identify trends and research opportunities, we conducted a systematic literature review from 1993 to 2016, with a hybrid methodology including bibliometric and content analysis. Besides highlighting the most influential papers and exhaustively discussing the innovation ecosystem concept and its variations, we identify a turning point in the literature, the transition from business ecosystem to innovation ecosystem. Business ecosystem relates mainly to value capture, while innovation ecosystem relates mainly to value creation. We conclude by describing six research streams in innovation ecosystem: industry platform × innovation ecosystem; innovation ecosystem strategy, strategic management, value creation and business model; innovation management; managing partners; the innovation ecosystem lifecycle; innovation ecosystem and new venture creation. These streams lead us to propose opportunities for further research to solidify the innovation ecosystem concept.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Management Science and Operations Research, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/92b3a1fba85183a7423f893572c8474cde32fe43

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Economics and Econometrics

In Management Science and Operations Research

In Strategy and Management

Citations in the corpus

How entrepreneurs manage collective uncertainties in innovation ecosystems (2017, background): “Complementary innovators are responsible for offering products and services that complement a given innovation (Gomes et al., 2016) and may encounter difficulties when selecting the best set of services or products that will allow customers to benefit from all the potential provided by the…”
Innovation performance: The effect of knowledge-based dynamic capabilities in cross-country innovation ecosystems (2021, positive): “Both knowledge and innovation are embedded within a bigger innovation context with evolving, recursive interactions between multi-level network members contained within the ecosystem (Acemoglu et al. 2016; De Vasconcelos et al. 2018; Valkokari, 2015).”