Innovation ecosystems: a meta-synthesis
International Journal of Innovation Science
ISSN: 1757-2223
Article publication date: 25 April 2018
Issue publication date: 15 October 2018
Abstract
Purpose
This metasynthesis aims to build a theory on the concept of innovation ecosystem from the state of the art of qualitative case studies available in indexed scientific production using interpretive synthesis (Hoon, 2013).
Design/methodology/approach
This research was conducted by the postulates of the metasynthesis method (Hoon, 2013) to generate theory from qualitative case studies. The authors retrieved 77 research papers from databases, of which 6 were used for synthesis purposes. Each selected research paper reported one or more cases, which were analyzed separately. At the final stage, a data synthesis was structured and the cases were crossed, which allowed the development of a schematic representation and a theoretical construction of the innovation ecosystem concept. The approach used in this research is a metatheoretical assumption from economics and management and ecology to explore the theoretical gap in the concept of innovation ecosystems.
Findings
There is not yet a conceptual consensus on the term, which sometimes leads researchers to address partial or complementary concepts. The analysis identified constitutive elements of an innovation ecosystem that lead to structuring a framework of organic and dynamic interrelationships that a given organization has with various external organizations, allowing the creation of innovative products in a faster way.
Research limitations/implications
This paper helps scholars and researchers consider a new metatheoretical perspective to analyze dynamics, constitutive elements and multilevels of an innovation ecosystem.
Practical implications
For practitioners, this paper sheds lights on the importance of recognizing a systemic consideration of innovation ecosystems that falls in global relationships, industry dynamics and identification of main global–local actors/enablers to produce innovations internally at a given organization.
Originality/value
The novelty of this paper lies in a more delineated definition and a schematic representation of an innovation ecosystem based on a global–local perspective of product creation and manufacturing and interactions that a given company has, regardless of the geographical location of its dispersed strategic partners.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the Associate Editor and the anonymous reviewers for their time in evaluating our research paper and for their valuable comments that improved this research. Marcos Ferasso thanks to CAPES Brazilian Funding Agency for the support through a scholarship.
Citation
Ferasso, M., Wunsch Takahashi, A.R. and Prado Gimenez, F.A. (2019), "Innovation ecosystems: a meta-synthesis", International Journal of Innovation Science, Vol. 10 No. 4, pp. 495-518. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJIS-07-2017-0059
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited