LINKING FIRMS IN VALUE BUSINESS ECOSYSTEMS: TOWARDS A CLASSIFICATION MODEL

This paper contributes to the business ecosystem literature by offering a classification model that allows for the differentiation of intercompany connections. The researchers found that the definition of a business ecosystem lacks separation in the types of connection between companies. Business ecosystems were found to differentiate significantly, from loosely coupled to highly regulated and organised company relationships. Work with practitioners has shown that some may even result in newly founded business ventures. The authors are therefore proposing a classification model for business ecosystems that allows further classifications in studies. The outcome of this study has helped practitioners to operationalise product service and service business ecosystems

Policy-Driven Industrial Ecosystems

The purpose of this research is the development of theory on how industrial ecosystems can be driven by policy and government interventions, especially when motivated by the pursuit of “technological sovereignty” as political objective. Theoretical foundation of the research forms a literature review, which summarizes the existing prior research on how inter-organisational relationships, with ecosystems at its core, are affected by policy measures and government interventions. “Technological sovereignty” is introduced as concept, and the role of network constructs at the inter-organisational level as the driving force behind value co-creation developments is explored. There are industrial network activities between companies identified, such as ecosystems, value chains and platforms, which can be supported and promoted by policy initiatives in the areas of industrial, innovation and technology policy. Such approaches potentially increase a country’s technological sovereignty and might ultimately lead to greater prosperity

Tech Sovereignty and Industrial Ecosystems

Theories of ecosystems in economic or business research are rarely considered from a perspective, in which these network constructs of inter-organisational relationships are influenced by policy initiatives and instruments – not just individual efforts of actors from within the ecosystem. In the geoeconomic context, the concept of “technological sovereignty” has been proposed as a framework for innovation policy, which could be a legitimate political objective if higher prosperity can be achieved. The research combines conceptual and empirical research on “policy-driven industrial ecosystems” that are embedded in such a competitive geoeconomic environment. A central thesis was developed from the synthesis of either concepts, suggesting that industrial ecosystems can be driven by policy and government interventions in a polity to achieve greater technological sovereignty. The dissertation topic thus aims to fill a research gap at the intersection of the fields strategic management, public policy, and international relations

SVEL – Introducing the Standardised Visualising Ecosystem Language for Temporally Capturing Competitive Dynamics in Evolving Innovation Ecosystems

We propose a visual method, namely the Standardised Visual Ecosystem Language (SVEL), for capturing and analysing the static structure, structural changes, and dynamic forces and effects in evolving innovation ecosystems. SVEL closes a gap in the methods toolbox of researchers, practitioners, and policy makers that we identified from conducting a systematic review and evaluation of 32 relevant visual methods, namely the capture and analysis of processes affecting industrial organisation and interfirm alignment in evolving ecosystems. We demonstrate SVEL’s effectiveness and practicability by validating it in a case study from the commercial aircraft aftermarket sector. In this sector, manufacturers transform to offering services in a bundle with their products in a process called servitization, thereby triggering competitive tensions with established specialist services firms, which we label Incumbent Service Providers (ISP). Empirical data was collected from ten semi-structured, in-depth interviews with senior managers and decision-makers at one large, established, and leading OEM-independent ISP. The results of our study are two-fold. First, we introduce SVEL that consists of three clusters of standardised symbols: (i) structural elements, (ii) dynamic forces and effects, and (iii) structural changes. Second, using the SVEL we produce a set of four aggregated innovation ecosystem maps that visually capture the static structure of the commercial aircraft aftermarket ecosystem prior to servitization, and the dynamic co-evolutionary processes triggered by manufacturers entering as new competitors to ISPs during servitization. Thus, we contribute to the methodology literature by narrowing the gap in the methods toolbox for researchers and practitioners in the field of innovation ecosystems by proposing and demonstrating SVEL as a visual method for capturing and analysing changes to industrial organisation and dynamic co-evolutionary processes

Coopetition For The Greater Good. Exploratory study of coopetition management mechanisms in the pharmaceutical industry

The pharmaceutical industry has experienced a remarkable surge in "coopetition," wherein rival companies join forces to pursue shared objectives, leading to a dynamic business environment fraught with tensions resulting from the coexistence of strong, contradictory forces of competition and cooperation. Despite its growing importance, research examining coopetition implementation and management, especially considering contextual influences shaping its dynamics, remains limited. This study aims to fill this gap by exploring the mechanisms of coopetition implementation and management in the pharmaceutical industry, focusing on the interrelation of different elements of coopetition execution and the contextual environment. Adopting an interpretivist philosophy and a qualitative, exploratory approach, this research engaged with industry insiders to explore how large, global pharmaceutical companies effectively manage dyadic coopetition. Key findings highlight the significance of the formation stage in mitigating tensions throughout the coopetition lifecycle. The operationalization stage emphasizes emotional and analytical capabilities across organizational levels, in addition to the balancing capability manifested through various coopetition management principles identified in the literature: separation, integration, arbitration, and a novel variant of co-management principles, alongside a unique approach - unilateral control, all complemented by supportive organizational adaptations. Moreover, diplomacy and learning capabilities were identified as crucial components of coopetition capabilities. The termination stage brings persisting tensions due to legal pressures and competitive vigilance. The research also brings to light the complex interplay between legal and regulatory institutional pressures and coopetition dualities. The research complements and contributes to coopetition management literature by proposing a multi-level, multi-stage view of tensions. It offers a nuanced understanding of how these tensions are navigated throughout the drug development cycle and highlights the importance of addressing the often-overlooked termination stage of coopetition. Furthermore, it highlights the complex relationship between institutional pressures and dualities. Overall, the study provides valuable insights into the nuanced mechanisms employed by large pharmaceutical companies to holistically manage and maintain balanced coopetition. Keywords: coopetition, pharmaceutical, management, execution, coopetition capability, regulated industries, legal pressures, coopetition lifecycle

Gaining Customer Experience Insights that Matter

Contextualized in post-purchase consumption in B2B settings, the authors contribute to customer experience management theory and practice in three important ways. First, by offering a novel customer experience conceptual framework that integrates prior customer experience research to better understand, manage, and improve customer experiences - comprised of value cocreation elements (resources, activities, context, interactions and customer role), cognitive responses and discrete emotions at touchpoints across the customer journey. Second, by demonstrating the usefulness of a longitudinal customer experience analytic based on the conceptual framework that combines quantitative and qualitative measures. Third, by providing a step-by-step guide for implementing the text mining approach in practice, thereby showing that customer experience analytics that apply big data techniques to the customer experience can offer significant insights that matter. The authors highlight six key insights practitioners need in order to manage their customers’ journey, through: (1) taking a customer perspective; (2) identifying root causes; (3) uncovering at-risk segments; (4) capturing customers’ emotional and cognitive responses; (5) spotting and preventing decreasing sales; and (6) prioritizing actions to improve customer experience (CX). The article concludes with directions for future research

Visualising dynamics in innovation ecosystems: A new method and demonstration in the commercial aircraft MRO ecosystem

A review and evaluation of 34 visual methods for ecosystem research revealed that there was no method to visually capture the dynamics of innovation ecosystems. To fill this gap, we develop and demonstrate a new visual method, the ecosystem dynamics mapping (EDM) language, for capturing and analysing (i) structural elements, (ii) structural changes and (iii) dynamic forces in evolving innovation ecosystems over time. To develop the EDM language we applied the design science research methodology (DSRM), conducting a demonstration case in the commercial aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) sector. The sector's innovation ecosystem is currently experiencing profound dynamics, with a focus in this paper specifically on dynamics that result from servitizing manufacturers. For the demonstration case, we conducted 18 in- depth semi-structured interviews with 10 decision-makers at a large incumbent service provider, producing a total of 13 ecosystem dynamics maps. This study attempts to make three contributions. First, it identifies, summarises and evaluates the existing ecosystem visualisation methods. Second, we introduce the new EDM language for visualising the dynamics of innovation ecosystems. Third, we present an EDM demonstration case validating its applicability. The EDM language can be used by researchers, practitioners and policy-makers to better understand how innovation ecosystems are changing, thereby supporting strategic decision-making or policy interventions

A Decisional Framework for Manufacturing Relocation: Consolidating and Expanding the Reshoring Debate

With respect to the increasing trend of companies reversing or modifying previous offshoring decisions, research on manufacturing relocation has gained momentum over the past decade. However, despite increasing efforts in this field, the general understanding of relocation still lacks maturity, with numerous conflicting results and arguments from a variety of industrial and regional contexts that are yet to be consolidated. This study uses a systematic literature review method to address this lack of consolidation, contributing to academia in three ways. First, this paper presents a novel decisional framework that involves all of the relevant aspects of a relocation decision based on 158 reviewed papers, laying a solid foundation for theoretical, conceptual and empirical development. Second, it consolidates and disambiguates all of the relevant terminologies used in relocation debates, providing proper logical clarification. Third, we identify 25 gaps in the research across all decisional aspects and propose 3 integrated research avenues that are critical to the accumulation of knowledge

CAN INDIA INCREASE ITS TECHNOLOGICAL SOVEREIGNTY?

The Silicon Valley of India has consistently ranked in the top 25 start-up ecosystems internationally and the country boasts 100 unicorns (businesses with a value of over $1billion). Additionally, nearly a quarter of the world’s engineers originate from India. It is against this background that the country is exploring the potential of ‘technological sovereignty’ to decrease its reliance on imported products. RADMA scholar Simon Frederic Dietlmeier, a PhD Candidate at the University of Cambridge, is investigating the potential of India to become more self-reliant in technology and to have self-determination in critical areas such as AI. In this article he uses the case-study of the Short Form Video market to explore the concept

Entrepreneurial Ecosystems as an Enabler of Technological Sovereignty: The Case of the Indian Short Form Video Market

This paper examines whether the geopolitical objective of technological sovereignty is attainable and enabled by entrepreneurial ecosystems, as both concepts aim to improve economic competitiveness. A qualitative single-case study of the Indian short-form video (SFV) market, which provides some of the most innovative business-to-consumer (B2C) digital applications, was conducted based on 20 stakeholder interviews and triangulated archival data. Numerous SFV start-ups were created in the city of Bangalore after a geopolitical incident that prompted the Indian government to ban comparable Chinese SFV apps, including TikTok. The research empirically demonstrates that the Bangalore entrepreneurial ecosystem facilitated technological sovereignty in three steps based on an input-process-output (IPO) model to enable the creation of these “sovereign” Indian SFV apps. Core of the theoretical enablement process is the adaptability of an entrepreneurial ecosystem to socio-political disruptions induced by geopolitical and geoeconomic objectives. This allows for ecosystem self-sustainment and triggers technological sovereignty as ecosystem response