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Entrepreneurial ecosystems have become policy strategies to stimulate entrepreneurial activities, yet the current understanding underlying value creation and the factors influencing this value-capturing mechanism remains limited. In this chapter, we systematically review literature related to the entrepreneurial ecosystem, and we seek to provide a greater understanding of the value creation process within an ecosystem. The findings from our content analysis shed light on the multifaceted structures and drivers of the value creation process. The study contributes to studies and theory development in the field of entrepreneurial ecosystem literature and further advances potential future research.

In the contemporary business environment, companies must constantly consider methods to enhance their competitive advantage and create value for their customers. The purpose of this paper is to develop a research model based on a business ecosystem view. Within a business ecosystem, the authors identified the key factors of co-development and the manner in which these factors affect a company’s innovation performance.

The theoretical hypotheses are confirmed by partial least squares analysis of survey responses collected from information and communication technology (ICT) and hotel industries in Taiwan.

In both industries, the results suggest that a firm’s co-development within its own ecosystem has positive effects on innovation performance. For companies in the ICT industry, collaborative networks and partner selection have significant impacts on the firms’ co-development, but their information technology (IT) capability does not; in contrast, in the hotel industry, partner selection and IT capability have significant impacts on firm co-development, but their collaborative network does not.

This study contributes to the literature of business ecosystem and co-development by offering a co-development model. As both conceptual and empirical research on this topic is still underdeveloped, this study provides fresh insights into collaboration management and offers significant theoretical and managerial implications from a business ecosystem perspective.

Innovation ecosystems face many environmental challenges. The literature review shows that innovation ecosystems accelerate innovation activity, but empirical studies have not provided enough case studies focusing on the minimum-waste business strategy as one aspect of the circular economy. Various forms of interaction between members occur in the innovation ecosystems, which determines the level of cooperation. This paper aims to show the structure and forms of cooperation in an innovation ecosystem using the Czech Hemp Cluster (CHC) and its surroundings and suggest research directions in the field of interaction between members in an innovation ecosystem. Although hemp is associated with the production and distribution of narcotics, it is a versatile plant supporting the minimum-waste business strategy.

The research is based on a theoretical part of a literature review of major scientific articles on innovation ecosystems from 2016 to 2021. The case study of the CHC and the hemp ecosystem is based on qualitative research in the form of a content analysis of the mission of the cluster members. In addition to content analysis, the classic multidimensional scaling method and hierarchical cluster analysis were used to reveal ecological guilds.

The case study highlighted the specific relationship between the cluster and the ecosystem. The cluster does not determine the ecosystem boundaries, but the ecosystem is a much broader system of cooperation and interaction between organisations. Clusters emerge after an ecosystem has existed for a particular time to coordinate collaboration and information between organisations and stakeholders. The analysis of the CHC revealed the specific role of non-profit organisations (NPOs) in the innovation ecosystem. NPOs are not engaged in primary functions in the value chain, but they provide supporting activities through coordinated networking, disseminating information on innovation, awareness-raising and stakeholder education. Compared to natural ecosystems, innovation ecosystems are typically characterised by higher forms of collaboration between members.

An exciting opportunity for research on innovation ecosystems is the ecological guilds taken from natural ecosystems and whose identification can help define the boundaries of innovation ecosystems. An opportunity for further research is the comparison of NPO-based and government-based clusters playing a central role in developing innovation ecosystems. Regarding the problematic generalisability of the case study to the entire agricultural production, a challenge is a search for minimum-waste business models in agriculture characterised by the biological nature of production.

Theoretical and empirical studies have not yet considered innovation ecosystems in the minimum-waste context to a sufficient extent. The paper builds on previous scholarly studies focusing on innovation ecosystems and, for the first time, discusses the role of NPOs in the innovation ecosystem. The CHC case study adds a suitable minimum-waste business model to the still very scarce literature on sustainable innovation ecosystems. The article discusses the purpose and forms of cooperation in an innovation ecosystem, identifies a complementarity of roles in the innovation cluster and describes the interrelationship between the cluster and the ecosystem. Discussion of the ecosystem leader in the cluster-based innovation ecosystem shows the differences between Czech, Polish and German life science ecosystems.

Hyper-collaboration means managing ecosystems not just as candy stores full of opportunities, but as fiercely competitive arenas in which companies fight for the best partners, technologies and networks to create, build and defend added value.

To address the challenges inherent in the dynamic world of hyper-collaboration, the authors identify the five pillars of ecosystem management and the priorities for implementing them.

To be successful, establish a clear vision and sense of purpose that guides the ecosystem evolution but is robust enough to deal with rapid changes.

Setting out clear IP principles is important, but it should be based on how best to maximize the overall value of the collaboration to all parties, rather than just protection.

Many of the world’s greatest technological challenges and opportunities, such as urbanization and mobility, are impossible to solve without forming a vast network of private and public organizations that work seamlessly together. Hyper-collaboration implies adopting a mindset that assumes it’s likely someone somewhere in the world already knows what you need to know to address such challenges– and it is unlikely that this person works in your company.

There are indications that trust is essential in innovation ecosystems relations. However, studies have not yet focused on deeply exploring such connection. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the influence of trust among actors in the context of innovation ecosystems.

This study developed a conceptual framework and a set of propositions. We raised a discussion based on the intertwining of three widely known dimensions of trust (ability, benevolence and integrity) and four dimensions of innovation ecosystems (network collaboration, interdependency, value co-creation and innovation objectives).

This paper suggests that trust contributes to the development of innovation ecosystems’ dimensions. In addition, it sheds light on the need to consider all three dimensions of trust together and simultaneously, because, by itself, none of them is sufficient to build trust in innovation ecosystems. Also, we argue that the different connections between the dimensions of trust and those of innovation ecosystems lead to the development of such ecosystems.

Through the approach of an underexplored area of research, this paper contributes to a broad understanding of the role of trust in innovation ecosystems toward the pursuit of creating innovation. It also proposes a novelty to the field, by suggesting four dimensions of innovation ecosystems to help managers analyze ecosystems through a more practical perspective.

Ecosystem partnerships are driving a dramatic change in the nature of business as industries as diverse as banking, automotive and retail are converging in unprecedented ways–and at an unprecedented rate. To learn how leading companies are embracing innovation in ecosystems to drive both value creation and competitiveness, the IBM Institute for Business Value in collaboration with Oxford Economics surveyed 1000 top executives in 19 industries and 29 countries between August and January 2019.

The survey cohort included 250 Chief Executive Officers, 150 Chief Financial Officers, 150 Chief Innovation Officers, 150 Chief Marketing Officers, 150 Chief Operations Officer and 150 Chief Alliance/Partnership Officers.

Analysis revealed that organizations with high engagement in ecosystems generate greater revenues from innovation initiatives. Specifically, revenues tied to innovation were more than 14 percent higher for ecosystem-engaged businesses than their less ecosystem-oriented peers.

The analysis showed that organizations differentiated on four innovation-enabling dimensions are more successful than others in ecosystem innovation. Their winning practices: 10;•9;They lead with platforms for innovating in ecosystems. 10;•9;They create the structures that enable the transformation of ideas into desired customer experiences in ecosystems 10;•9;They establish effective, meaningful measurements for successful innovation in ecosystems. 10;•9;They approach innovation with a collaborative mindset and create an environment of openness that shapes innovative behavior. 10;

The study identified the best practices of the most successful companies, ecosystem innovators. They excel across four innovation dimensions. They build platforms and employ ecosystems to better orchestrate customer experiences. They establish processes to effectively measure innovation within ecosystems in which they operate. They form organizational structures that institutionalize innovation. And they create and promote environments of openness and collaboration

Innovation ecosystems consist of independent and yet interdependent enterprises and actors. This constitutes a challenge for innovation leadership to set the direction to pursue UN SDGs. Enhanced insights and understandings of how collaborative innovation leadership can be conducted in practice are revealed in two cases conducted using a participatory action research approach. Hereby theory and practice are linked by the ecosystem participant actions to reach competitiveness of the offshore wind energy ecosystem compared to traditional/other renewable energy sources pursuing UN SDG number 7 of ‘affordable and clean energy’. The two cases are situated in ports in offshore wind energy innovation ecosystems, respectively in the Baltic Sea and in the North Sea. The first case contains complementary ecosystem participants with both leadership and expert positions. The second case contains both complementary and competitive ecosystem participants with leadership positions. The findings note that both cases can use collaborative innovation leadership through the point of origin in the guiding star of the value proposition at ecosystem level to go beyond their own enterprise self-interest. Next, collaborative innovation leadership is based in heterogeneities of both knowledge domains and individual and organisational behaviours for the innovative imagination of future needed initiatives for collaborative design-based sensemaking. A short-term challenge is present from reduced revenue in own enterprise from future needed initiatives. This short-term impact needs to be addressed for enhanced long-term robustness. The findings are summarised in a model for dissemination of collaborative innovation leadership in ecosystems to pursue UN SDGs in practice.

Smart industry initiatives focus on intelligent and interconnected cyber-physical systems. These initiatives develop complex technical architectures that integrate heterogenous technologies, causing significant organizational complexity. Tapping into the digital capabilities of distant partners while capturing profit from such innovation is demanding. Furthermore, firms often need to establish and orchestrate inter-organizational collaborations without prior relations or established trust. As a result, smart industry initiatives bring together disparate organizational forms and institutional environments, distinctive knowledge bases, and geographically dispersed organizations. We conceptualize this organizational capability as ‘distant capabilities integration’. This research explores the governance mechanisms that support such integration and their relation to value capture. We analyse 11 IoT case studies organized in three categories (process, product and technologies) of smart industry initiatives. Building on existing literature, we consider different ways to describe distance, including knowledge heterogeneity and organizational, geographical, institutional, cultural and cognitive distance. Finally, we describe the governance mode appropriate for upstream (developing foundational technologies) and downstream (leveraging existing distant technologies) smart industry initiatives.

The megaproject is a vital innovation ecosystem for participants engaging in technological adoption and integration to achieve project goals. The purpose of this paper is to examine how ecosystem captains build and operate a megaproject innovation ecosystem (MIE). To be more specific, we conducted an in-depth case study to identify the roles played by ecosystem captains in establishing and managing a megaproject innovation ecosystem.

Based on the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge project, the data we collected range from 2010 to 2019 and include semi-structured interviews, informal conversations, and archival documents. We employed an inductive theory building approach to address our research question and analyzed our data using the coding process and Atlas.ti software.

We find that the ecosystem captains themselves are client organizations that have evolved with the ecosystem during four distinct yet inter-related phases. In addition, we find that the captains’ roles of the client organizations include two typical activities: ecosystem establishment and ecosystem collaboration. The ecosystem captains first frame problems, plan innovative activities, set rules, and select participants for the establishment of the ecosystem, and then orchestrate resources, buffer conflicts, incorporate innovative networks, and cultivate an innovation culture to create a collaborative ecosystem.

This study proposes a theoretical framework showing how ecosystem captains engage in MIE to manage innovative activities during different stages. It highlights the importance of captainship roles in client organizations in a megaproject.

This paper aims to present an interview with Professor Ron Adner, author of The Wide Lens.

The paper presents an interview with Professor Ron Adner, author of The Wide Lens to ask about his structured approach to uncovering the hidden sources of dependence in innovation ecosystems that undermine collaboration efforts. Adner describes how to use the tools he has developed to assess, map and analyse innovation ecosystems. Adner explains that when delivering value depends on the combined efforts of multiple innovation partners – both within and across firms – executing brilliantly does not prevent failure if the other partners stumble. Numerous case studies are reported and a new set of analysis tools is introduced.

Adner reveals that success in new product/service ecosystems requires innovation partners that are both able and willing to participate in a novel solution.

The paper notes that seeing innovation as ecosystem management produces many new insights about effective implementation.