Abstract
The fierce competitive status of the business world has urged innovation activities to transform from mechanistic to ecological and organic. An innovation ecosystem consists of multilateral organizations and emerges as a favorable mechanism for value co-creation and sustainable growth. Yet the theorizing of an innovation ecosystem is still at an early stage and in-depth studies from emerging economy leaders are insufficient. This study aims to investigate how an innovation ecosystem is constructed and coordinated from a core-firm based view. An exploratory single case study on the Haier Group is adopted. Through analyzing the multi-bedded units (i.e., six innovation projects/technological breakthroughs), we extract and depict Haier’s innovation ecosystem and the ecological niches within it. We highlight an innovation ecosystem that promotes sustainable development and is based on complementarities in technologies and resources, while at the same time integrates non-technological issues such as strategy, culture, institution, and the market. Regarding ecosystem coordination, value appropriability should be ensured to sustain the innovation ecosystem. Moreover, we argue that the ultimate purpose of innovation ecosystem is not to facilitate the realization of one specific project, but rather to improve the overall success rate of innovations within it. This research complements and extends literature on enterprise innovation ecosystems, and provides implications as to the construction, coordination, and sustainability of innovation ecosystems for emerging economy firms.
Highlights
Innovation, as a key driver for achieving sustainability, has been widely recognized [1,2]
This study aims to investigate the following questions: (1) How does a core firm construct an enterprise innovation ecosystem to gain sustainable development? (2) How does a core firm coordinate its relationships with innovation ecosystem actors to gain sustainable development? An exploratory single case study design is adopted to investigates the construction and coordination of an enterprise innovation ecosystem from a core firm’s perspective
Based on the multi-embedded case study design, we focused on the research and design phase of product/technological innovations developed and released in recent years, and tried to investigate the construction mechanism, key components, and management of Haier’s enterprise innovation ecosystem
Summary
Innovation, as a key driver for achieving sustainability, has been widely recognized [1,2]. Unlike traditional innovation activities which pursue economic value through profit maximization, sustainable innovation balances ethical, long-term oriented, societal, and ecological principles associated with development, and promotes environmental, social, and economic values for individuals, organizations, and nations [3,4,5]. The interdependency and symbiosis between ecosystem actors ensure the survival, balance, continuous renewal, and sustainable development of the ecosystem [7,8]. Industrial leaders such as Haier, Alibaba, Apple, Microsoft, and Huawei, through establishing enterprise innovation ecosystems and continuously supporting entrepreneurial initiatives, have facilitated the spring-up of new, disruptive technologies and products creating value to consumers and sustainable development for societies, and achieved sustainable business growth and competitive advantages
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