Discussant: Innovation Ecosystems (AOM 2014)
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Transcript of Discussant: Innovation Ecosystems (AOM 2014)
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Innovation Ecosystems: Benefits, Challenges, and Structures
Discussion August 5, 2014
Joel West Professor, Innovation & Entrepreneurship School of Applied Life Sciences
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Innovation Ecosystems
• Interdependence between firms • Joint need for ecosystem health • Work cooperatively to create value • Specialization and niche finding
• Often lead by dominant firm • Firm success depends on ecosystem management skills • Importance of building healthy and complete ecosystem
Moore 1993, Iansiti & Levien, 2004, Adner, 2012
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Users
Smartphone Ecosystems
West & Wood, Advances in Strategic Management (2013)
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Networks, Communities
• Networks link multiple organizations via transactions or ongoing ties
• Powell, 1990; Gomes-Casseres, 1996; Staudenmayer et al, 2000 • Communities add shared identity and governance
• Markus, 2007; von Hippel, 2007; O’Mahony & Lakhani, 2011 • Ecosystems link firms that provide complementary
goods and services • Moore, 1993; Iansiti & Levien, 2004; Adner & Kapoor, 2010
• Platforms combine a technical compatibility architecture with an ecosystem
• Gawer & Cusumano, 2002; West, 2003; Eisenmann, 2008
See West, New Frontiers in Open Innovation (2013)
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Marengo: Platforms
• Interdependence and complementarity of ecosystems
• Particular interest in platforms • Complex systems • Mutual interest in platform success • Need to evolve ecosystem and its outputs
• Studied via a model
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Marengo: Further Research
• Opportunity to generalize insights on dynamic platform competition
• Examine competing platforms • Four basic types of platform contests (Gallagher &
West, 2009): • Static (VCR) • Episodic (early videogames) • Linked (cellphones, current videogames) • Continuous (smartphones, social media)
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Miles: Communities
• We know collaboration is important • What are the barriers between firms? • What are the barriers within firms? • Is it driven by firm (or societal) norms? • How can we change things?
• Direct links to cumulative innovation • Allen, 1983; Nuvolari, 2004; Scotchmer, 2004; Murray
& O’Mahony, 2007; also von Hippel, 2005
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Miles: Further Research
• Many firms compete w/o cooperating • Rarer are examples of firm cooperation
• Inventors of the airplane (Meyer, 2013) • Standardization communities (Axelrod et al, 1995;
Leiponen, 2008; Simcoe, 2012) • Open source software (West, 2003; Stam, 2009;
Spaeth et al, 2010) • Are differences attitudinal or strategic?
• An open empirical questions
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Snow: Communities
• Multi-firm innovation ecosystems • How can firms best collaborate? • What are the rules? • What benefits can be realized?
See Fjelstad et al (2012), Moore (1993)
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Snow: Further Research
• We have examples of the architecture of interfirm collaboration
• West & O’Mahony, 2008; Fjeldstad et al, 2012 • But need a more general solution
• What are the fundamental axioms? • Moderators? • Contracts and property rights?
• Other research designs (experiments, simulations, ethnographic, etc.)
• Cf. O’Mahony & Ferraro, 2007; Terwiesch & Xu 2008
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Teece & Leih: Local Ecosystems
• What is the proper role for a university in the local innovation ecosystem?
• How can it be made more effective? • What are the needs of new firms? • How can both parties benefit? • Will this corrupt the university?
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Teece & Leih: Further Research
• Some of this is well-trodden • Universities as seeds of local industry
clusters (cf. Kenney & Mowery 2014) • University tech transfer
• University-firm open system • Measuring ongoing flows (both ways) • Measuring simultaneous ties • Role of boundary spanners
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Final Thoughts
• Ecosystems are increasingly recognized as important to firm success
• Important to theory and practice
• An opportunity for future research • Considerable research on ICT and other digital goods • How do these ideas extend beyond ICT?
• E.g. Kim et al 2014 study of Chez Panisse • Clearly delineate overlap with other constructs