Bottlenecks as Drivers of Evolution in Innovation Ecosystems - A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

Bottlenecks have recently emerged as one of the key objects of inquiry in research on ecosystems. However, as the concept of ecosystems in management research and business strategy suffers from a lack of theoretical clarity and rigor in application, definitions of bottlenecks used by different scholars often diverge dramatically. Additionally, despite the high potential significance of the topic to practitioners in today’s interconnected business reality, existing literature on strategies to address bottlenecks in ecosystems is disparate and yet to be unified under the roof of an overarching research agenda. We aim to solve this fragmentation by synthesizing existing literature on bottlenecks in the specific case of innovation ecosystems. The results of this study aim to contribute to the research strand of innovation ecosystems in business strategy by (1) offering a clear definition of bottlenecks in innovation ecosystems, (2) by providing a typology to distinguish different types of bottlenecks in innovation ecosystems, (3) by describing overarching strategies that actors can apply to address these bottlenecks, and (4) by conceptualizing bottlenecks as drivers of evolution in innovation ecosystems.