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Disruptive technologies in the global logistics industry are often regarded as a threat to the existing business models of incumbents’ companies. Existing research, however, focuses mainly on whether technologies have disruptive potential, thereby neglecting when such disruptive transitions occur. To understand the timing of potential disruptive technological change, this paper aims to investigate the elements of the underlying ecosystem shaping these transitions.

Building on the established ecosystem framework from Adner and Kapoor (2016a), this paper constructs four categories of technology substitution to assess how quickly disruptive change may occur in the global logistics industry and defines key technology substitution determinants in logistics to emphasize the role of ecosystems for further consideration into disruptive innovation theory.

Based on the key determinants, this paper proposes first definitions of distinctive ecosystems elements linked to the three types of innovations, namely, sustaining innovations, low-end disruptions and new-market disruptions, thereby integrating ecosystems into Christensen’s (1997) disruptive innovation theory.

By developing a framework that conceptualizes the pace of technology substitution, this paper contributes to a more nuanced understanding of how logistics managers and academics can better predict disruptive transitions and develop strategies to allocate resources.

Platform, open/user innovation, and ecosystem strategies embrace and enable interactions with external entities. Firms pursuing these approaches conduct business and interact with environments differently than those pursuing traditional closed strategies. This chapter considers these strategies together highlighting similarities and differences between platform, open/user innovation, and ecosystem strategies. We focus on managerial and organizational challenges for organizations pursuing these strategies and identify four institutional logic shifts associated with these strategic transitions: (1) increasing external focus, (2) moving to greater openness, (3) focusing on enabling interactions, and (4) adopting interaction-centric metrics. As mature incumbent organizations adopt these strategies, there may be tensions and multiple conflicting institutional logics. Additionally, we consider four strategic leadership topics and how they relate to platform, open/user innovation, and ecosystem strategies: (1) executive orientation and experience, (2) top management teams, (3) board-management relations, and (4) executive compensation. We discuss theoretical implications, and consider future directions and research opportunities.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate, through the example of the Springfield Armory and its role in the development of interchangeable parts, the critical role of government in establishing a cluster of organizations that evolved into an innovation ecosystem primarily located in the Connecticut River Valley in the 1800s. Using the Springfield Armory example, we use the related but largely unjoined concepts of ecosystem and networks to show that these organizational forms are effective in driving innovation.

The design uses an in-depth analysis of the role of the Springfield Armory to explicate the joining of network and ecosystem theory as an early example of the importance of governmental funding and support for innovation.

The development of interchangeable parts in the American arms industry in the 19th century transformed manufacturing worldwide. At the heart of this transformation was the network of arms makers that developed in the Connecticut River Valley as a direct result of US Government investment and support. This network of arms makers evolved into an ecosystem of mutually reinforcing relationships as machine tool manufacturers benefited from an environment of free-flowing intellectual property, information and growing governmental demand for arms. The Armory illustrates the government’s role in initiating and sustaining clusters of innovation that otherwise might not have developed as quickly.

Much of the research on the role of government in creating innovation ecosystems and organizational networks is based on modern organizations. This use of the Springfield Armory in the early 1800s broadens the knowledge on how innovation ecosystems in conjunction with networked organizations can be created by governments serving the public good.

This chapter adopts a problem-solving perspective to analyze the competitive dynamics of innovation ecosystems. We argue that features such as uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, entail different knowledge requirements which explain the varying abilities of focal firms to coordinate the ecosystem and benefit from the activities of their suppliers, complementors, and users. We develop an analytical framework to interpret various instances of coupling patterns and identify four archetypical types of innovation ecosystems.

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.

Innovation ecosystems have not been defined univocally. The authors compare the different approaches to innovation ecosystems in the literature, the link with open innovation, the value creating and value capturing processes in innovation ecosystems, and the need to orchestrate them properly. In this way, the purpose of this paper is to provide a highly needed, concise overview of the state of the art in innovation ecosystem thinking.

A systematic screening of the literature searching for publications focusing on innovation ecosystems is carried out in the paper. The authors found 30 publications and compared the different approaches to innovation ecosystems: the authors classify them according to industries, the level of analysis, their central focus on innovation ecosystems, whether frameworks are developed in the publications, the main actors, focus on SMEs or large companies, the success of innovation ecosystems and the role of the orchestrator.

The authors found different approaches to innovation ecosystems in the literature. Some papers look at the link with open innovation, and others at the value creating and value capturing processes in innovation ecosystems, the role of orchestrators, etc. The authors also provide an overview about the industries, the level of analysis, the central focus of the research, the main actors in the networks and the success factors. The authors observe that most publications have been written in Europe and apply to European ecosystems. The approach in Europe is, to some extent, also different from the main focus of leading American scholars.

The authors compare different approaches to innovation ecosystems. This provides a highly needed understanding of the state of the art in innovation ecosystem thinking. There are some limitations as well: the paper only does a literature review, and the authors are not developing a new framework to study innovation ecosystems.

The literature overview is not primarily focused on practitioners, but the tables in the paper provide a quick overview of good management practices for setting up and managing innovation ecosystems.

Innovations ecosystems are, in some cases, established to solve major societal problems such as changes in healthcare, energy systems, etc. Therefore, they require the interaction between different types of partners including universities, research institutes and governmental agencies. Studying innovation ecosystems is crucial to facilitate social or societal changes.

The paper presents a highly needed overview of the literature about innovation ecosystems and a concise examination of the different aspects that are studied so far.

Over recent years, few industries have seen such dramatic changes as the healthcare industry. The potential connectivity of digital technologies is completely transforming the healthcare ecosystem. This has resulted in companies increasingly investing in digital transformations to exploit data across channels, operations and patient outreach, by building on a practice approach and actor-network theory and being informed by service-dominant logic, this study aims to contribute by advancing the agential role of third-party actors to prompt innovation and shape service ecosystems.

This research is grounded in an epistemological contextualism. To gain situated knowledge and address the role of context in knowledge, understanding and meaning the authors adopted a qualitative methodology to study actors in their different contexts. The empirical research was based on case theory. The authors also took guidance from practice scholars about how to investigate actors’ practices. The unit of analysis moves from dyadic relationships to focus on practices across different networks of actors.

This study expands on the conceptualization of triad as proposed by Siltaloppi and Vargo (2017) by moving from the form of triadic relationships – brokerage, mediation and coalition – to the agency of e-health third-parties; and their practices to innovate in the healthcare ecosystem. This study focuses on the actors and the performativity of actions and grounding the conceptual view on an empirical base.

Third-party actors bring about innovative ways of doing business in the healthcare ecosystem. Their actions challenge the status quo and run counter to long-time practices. Third-parties support the complex set of interconnections between different healthcare actors for the provision of new service co-creation opportunities. Considering how these e-health third-parties performs has implications for health managers, patients and other actors.

This study focuses on the actors and the performativity of actions and grounding the conceptual view on an empirical base. The agency of third-party actors is their ability to act among others and to connect multiple social and material structures to boost innovation. They prompt innovation and shape service ecosystems by brokering, mediating and coalescing among a great variety of resources, practices and institutions.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how Chinese enterprises overcome their lack of resource and capabilities and eventually fulfill global resource accumulation, fast innovative commercialization and significant technological breakthrough by establishing and coordinating innovation ecosystem at firm level.

This paper first reviewed the literature on the structure and coordinating mechanism of enterprise innovation ecosystem and identified two important gaps on the characteristics of ecosystem actors and the logic of innovative coordination. Then, the paper adopted grounded analysis about the construction and evolution of Haier’s innovation ecosystem based on longitudinal case data. On the basis of the case study, the construct of firm-level innovation ecosystem and new logic of coordination are formed.

This paper found the emerging phenomenon of sub-organizational ecosystem actors and depicted that the establishing process of firm-level innovation ecosystem went through three majors stages, and the corresponding coordinating logic changed from proactive intervention to reactive self-evolution.

This paper tried to make contributions to the studies of structure and coordinating mechanism of enterprise innovation ecosystem, and proposed the enterprise itself could build firm-level ecosystem within its organizational boundary and interact with external ecosystem. The findings enlightened the nested structure of ecosystem, opened the black box of organizational boundary and broke the limitation that existing researches only analyse innovation ecosystem at system level and regard firms as basic analytical unit. Besides, this paper proposed that the coordination of innovation ecosystem can be passively fulfilled by network effect and ecological evolution, where previous studies mainly focused on proactive institutional intervention and resource investment. This point could provide Chinese enterprises with good references.

Science parks are business clusters situated in a particular geographical location, originally conceptualized by local universities, local government and businesses. In recent times, science park stakeholders and tenants are starting to pursue social value and even how to manage. This study aims to clarify the understanding of social value in an innovation ecosystem.

This study combines existing literature studies and concepts, observations in a real-life innovation ecosystem – a Bioscience Park – and interviews of key personnel managing the science park.

Science Park Social Value (SPSV) is a value resulting from interaction among groups and not just the pursuit of a single firm-level goal. SPSV emanates from the firms within the science park in reaction to the demands of the actors or entities within and outside the innovation ecosystem of the science park: internal operations, external stakeholders and infexternal or broader societal impact. In addition to this, the author has conceptualized a framework for social value of an innovation ecosystem, which will require further research.

This paper creates a link between concepts about social value, innovation ecosystem (e.g. science park) and stakeholder theory.

SPSV will be useful for science park orchestrators or managers to manage expectations of social and non-social actors.

Social value of a science park will bring a new light on the stigma that science parks are only money-making ventures and are not in touch with social issues.

This study theorized and researched previously unrelated concepts.