Abstract
AbstractBurgeoning research on innovation ecosystems offers a variety of conceptual approaches. Recent systematic literature reviews and syntheses provide a rich, diverse, but somehow abstract view of IEs. Our study advances the literature by taking the perspective of those involved in IEs. We aim to identify how various actors contribute to co-innovation in innovation ecosystems. In order to do so, our aim is to establish the various types of actors (who?), the distinct roles (what?), the different stages (when?), and the diverse engagement in co-innovation processes (how?). The study investigates the Polish Gaming Innovation Ecosystem as a globally successful example of a knowledge-intensive and highly creative innovation ecosystem. Data was collected over 3 years (between 2015 and 2017), in three waves of interviews (38) and non-participatory observations (5). We find that Gaming Innovation Ecosystem participants identify a total of 12 types of collective actors, 9 types of individual actors, and 1 community of individuals. Furthermore, we find four distinctive roles that actors may play in the co-creation processes, that is: direct value creation, supporting value creation, encouraging entrepreneurship, and leadership. Finally, we structure the co-innovation process into five stages: co-discovery, co-development, co-deployment, co-delivery and co-dissemination. We identify the diverse scope and varied intensity of actors’ engagement, depending on the co-innovation phase, as perceived by our informants.
Highlights
Ecosystems (Adner 2017; Tsujimoto et al 2018), and innovation ecosystems (IE) in particular (Durst and Poutanen 2013; Yaghmaie and Vanhaverbeke, 2019; Talmar et al 2018; Adner 2017; Aarikka-Stenroos and Ritala 2017), are attracting a rapidly growing attention in both academia and managerial practice (Vargo et al 2015; Thomas and Autio 2020)
We aim to establish the various types of actors, the distinct roles, the different stages, and the diverse engagement in co-innovation processes as perceived by those involved in innovation ecosystems
Due to the deficit of empirical investigation on eco-centric innovation ecosystems, our study focuses on the Gaming Innovation Ecosystem (GIE) operating around the video game industry (VGI), but not organized around a single focal video game developer (VGD)
Summary
Ecosystems (Adner 2017; Tsujimoto et al 2018), and innovation ecosystems (IE) in particular (Durst and Poutanen 2013; Yaghmaie and Vanhaverbeke, 2019; Talmar et al 2018; Adner 2017; Aarikka-Stenroos and Ritala 2017), are attracting a rapidly growing attention in both academia and managerial practice (Vargo et al 2015; Thomas and Autio 2020). According to the ecosystem perspective, every type of ecosystem is directly focused on value co-creation (Aarikka-Stenroos and Ritala 2017; Kapoor and Lee 2013; Vargo et al 2015). In contrast to networks or alliances, joint value creation in ecosystems does not necessarily involve explicit rules of value capture (Bouncken et al 2020). The co-creation with customers (Prahalad and Ramaswamy 2004) and even of communities with customers (Prahalad 2004), goes much further by involving co-creation with other external actors, and even entire networks of actors (Vargo and Lusch 2011)
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