Business Ecosystem Finance: Modern Agenda and Challenges

Abstract

The relevance of the research is confirmed by the fact that, with the widespread distribution of ecosystems as high-tech heirs of clusters and platforms, the issues of financing business ecosystems are rarely studied in the scientific literature and do not receive the necessary theoretical generalization. The purpose of the research is to systematize the available forms of financing in industrial business ecosystems within a united digital space. The objectives of this research are defined as clarifying the need to include financing functions in the toolkit of emerging industrial business ecosystems and revealing the possibilities of using selected financing methods. The methods of research, on the one hand, are based on the emerging theory of ecosystems, which develops both as a firm’s theory and as ecosystem management, and on the other hand, on a new concept that can be formulated as a fusion of finance, industrialization and digitalization. The results of the research show that there are several approaches to the organization of ecosystem finance. Ecosystems are reported to be equally susceptible to decentralized and centralized (traditional) financing, providing opportunities to create their own decentralized financial environment as well as collaborating with current cryptocurrency-based services. Several forms of financial organization in ecosystems have been identified: a) compensating costs by forming budgets for the creation and ongoing activities; b) attracting ecosystem participants’ own funds to various forms of lending (including on the basis of financial technologies). It is concluded that the development of financing instruments depends on three factors: 1) government policies to regulate the financial aspects of business ecosystems; 2) the efficiency of using the resources of ecosystem participants; 3) ecosystem interactions with supply chains. It is determined that a completely new theory of business ecosystem finance will be completed only after the exit from the experimental mode of financing business ecosystems.