Original title: Towards a Theory of Ecosystems
A business ecosystem is a group of separate organizations whose work depends on one another. ModularityA system is modular when it is divided into parts that can connect through defined rules or interfaces.—breaking a system into parts that can connect through shared rules—lets them coordinate without one organization managing everyone. Their investments are hard to reuse elsewhere, which ties the group together. The value comes from complementarities: one organization’s contribution makes another’s more useful.
Imagine a group of neighbors putting on a shared meal. Each person brings something that depends on the others, and it is hard to use those contributions for a different meal once plans are set. In this paper, the neighbors are separate organizations, their contributions depend on one another, and shared rules for each role help them coordinate without one person managing every detail.
For managers, the key is that partners can depend on one another without being run by one company. Shared rules for similar roles can reduce the need to negotiate a separate customized contract with every partner.
The abstract presents a conceptual theory and implications for strategy research, but does not report empirical tests or evidence that the proposed account predicts ecosystem success or failure. It does not establish how often the different forms of complementarity occur or whether the framework applies equally across industries.
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Towards a Theory of Ecosystems — Michael G. Jacobides, Carmelo Cennamo, Annabelle Gawer — Strategic Management Journal — doi:10.1002/smj.2904
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.