Disruptive Innovation Ecosystems

Abstract

Ecosystems are valuable in creating diverse and collaborative environments that enable businesses to innovate in ways that are much more difficult without them. However, business managers can be reluctant to participate in building ecosystems mainly due to lack of understanding. Specifically, businesses can be uncomfortable sharing resources, data, intellectual property and secrets with other ecosystem actors. Drawing on inter-disciplinary perspectives from literature, we use a ‘design focused ecosystem thinking' to propose a new type of Disruptive Innovation Ecosystem (DIE). Firstly, we discuss the significance of adopting innovation ecosystems to create shared value. Secondly, we conceptualize a new type of DIE and propose steps on how DIEs can be created and fostered. Finally, we discuss DIE roles in relation to Amazon, Apple, Uber, and Siemens ecosystem cases. This paper offers a new type of DIE design process which may be leveraged by businesses towards building sustainable innovation ecosystems.