Narrow Results

Mobile business ecosystems are based on product innovations and complements created on platforms facilitating transactions between groups of users in a multi-sided market. The purpose of this research is to present a model of success factors (SF) of mobile ecosystems. This research establishes an empirical framework based on the Android ecosystem, which has been analyzed in-depth on firm and ecosystem level, identifying 16 success factors. The main theoretical contribution is a model that identifies SF of platforms, which are related to the identification of the role of users and complementors in increasing innovation success. The model advances research in innovation platforms.

Today, data are increasing in importance for firms trying to create and maintain a competitive advantage. As value creation is highly dependent on this key resource, data, the necessity of re-designing firms’ business models arises. By conducting and analyzing 58 in-depth interviews, we contribute a distinct set of barriers to data-driven business model innovation showing how data-related, technology-related, aversions and regulatory hurdles are the most challenging. Based on six focus groups that discussed these findings, participants identified the necessity for a change in companies’ firm-centered perspectives on business. Hence, we propose a model of data-driven business ecosystems that aims to provide guidance for conducting successful business in a data-driven world.

Digital ecosystems are a logical variant of the business ecosystem, defined as a group of businesses which cooperate for mutual advantage. While there has been much business strategy research concerning the economic innovations created by a functioning digital ecosystem, research which specifically analyzes the technology innovations both preceding and during the life of the digital ecosystem is lacking. Likewise, the lifecycle process which involves the creation, sustainability, and gradual dissolution of the ecosystem is treated as a nebulous activity with scarce mention in existing literature. Notably, no formal model of a digital ecosystem lifecycle has been proposed. A clear delineation of a digital ecosystem lifecycle would provide a framework for examination of the sources and types of innovations which lead to the formation of a digital ecosystem and thus provide the basis for further research in this area which would inform the process of developing and sustaining digital ecosystems. In order to discern the lifecycle of a digital ecosystem, this paper uses a case study approach to examine the history of several prominent digital ecosystems in the time period between 1981 and 2012: the IBM PC, the French Minitel, and the Apple and Android smartphones. The synthesis and analysis of the historical data contained in the case studies is then organized into a proposed digital ecosystem lifecycle model, a framework for further research. Additionally, observational analysis of the case studies provides insights concerning the sources of the technologies used to create the digital ecosystems and ability of those technologies to sustain the ecosystem.

Business has to cope with increasing uncertainty in its environment. While for many companies this creates a formidable challenge, it can also offer significant opportunities for those companies that innovate in the face of this uncertainty. But to take advantage of such innovations, we have proposed that companies must organize themselves differently from traditional markets or hierarchies. They need to embrace collaboration with partners in loosely coupled networks or business ecosystems, but these ecosystems are difficult to manage. Based on a wide range of case studies, it is proposed that the focus of management should be on the reduction of inefficiencies, stimulating learning and fair allocation of the value created by the ecosystem. That will require a different type of leadership, one that is collaborative in nature and where leaders can motivate people beyond their own organizations.

We are bombarded with buzzwords such as disruption, digitalization and the sharing economy, and the trending technologies that fuel them — the Internet of Things, big data, and artificial intelligence. Simultaneously, we see whole industries being shaken to the core and rearranged into new patterns by new players. In this chapter, we posit that a new business model, the disruptive ecosystem, is at the core of this movement.

The disruptive ecosystem is a paradigm that is capable of absorbing the power of digital technologies and combining them with the business model and innovation theory. We believe this new business model is the common denominator between companies like Apple, Facebook, Samsung, Uber, Google, Tesla, and Amazon. We will present how a disruptive ecosystem looks like, and how and where disruptive, open and combinatorial innovation happens in these two-sided business models and ecosystems. This chapter also includes practical examples from industry.

Mobile business ecosystems are based on product innovations and complements created on platforms facilitating transactions between groups of users in a multi-sided market. The purpose of this research is to present a model of success factors (SF) of mobile ecosystems. This research establishes an empirical framework based on the Android ecosystem, which has been analyzed in-depth on firm and ecosystem level, identifying 16 success factors. The main theoretical contribution is a model that identifies SF of platforms, which are related to the identification of the role of users and complementors in increasing innovation success. The model advances research in innovation platforms.