Ecosystem Metaphor Research Articles

Opening up creative resources: towards age-friendly communities through rhizomatic thinking and doing

ABSTRACT Globally, many complex issues, like the ageing population and health inequalities, require attention. People are experimenting to combat these issues in their local contexts through bigger or smaller networks; however, much of the knowledge about these initiatives remains localised and elitist and omits the voices and perspectives of citizens. This article identifies the characteristics of a more horizontal, emergent and plural epistemology to mobilize knowledge. We used local networks building age-friendly communities in the Netherlands as a case study. With members of 110 local networks, we worked with a new methodology called dynamic knowledge synthesis to create fruitful interactions and learn with stakeholders, including older citizens, in a learning community. Four working principles helped us, namely (1) a rhizomatic design based on multiplicity, heterogeneity and non-linearity of knowledge; (2) fertile soil nurtured by the talents and wisdom of participants through participatory arts-based methods; (3) so-called ‘wicked skills’ of a forester 2.0 to facilitate learning; and (4) an ecosystem metaphor as a boundary object to understand local networks. We invite colleagues to experiment with dynamic knowledge synthesis to connect on different levels, with particular attention to the inclusion of citizens in creating sustainable local communities.

Making Sense of Legitimacy Across Universities: Ecocritical Ontological Perspective

This paper reflects on research methodological considerations of how legitimacy of publicly funded universitiesoccurs. From an ecocritical ontological perspective the paper uses a metaphor and sense-making techniques to shed light into effective modalities universities use to connect with local economies. The Milky way Galactic ecosystem metaphor is used not only to make sense of the ecocritical ontological stance taken to make sense of legitimacy but is used as a metaphor to make sense of the findings. The paper asserts that the legitimacy theoretical lens is particularly appropriate to probe universities’ legitimacy and connectedness to the local communities they are embedded in. The rationale behind this assertion is that legitimacy is only conferred to the extent the actions of an entity are perceived as desirable, efficient, proper, or appropriate by the ecosystem stakeholders. The theory is thus useful for examining connectedness of publicly funded universities to its local community. The paper argues that the university system that is delinked from local economic development is like a Milky way Galaxy delinked from its Galactic ecosystem. Against this backdrop, the paper juxtaposes Mondragon University, located in a rural part of Northern Spain with two South African universities embedded in poverty stricken rural South Africa. Mondragon University is presented as a hallmark of success when it comes to local community legitimacy. The paper is centered around the following question: (1) how does university legitimacy yield impactful local community outcomes? Using the Milky way Galaxy metaphor, the findings show a considerable variety in local community connectedness depending on bureaucratic arrangements of the universities. The findings also showed that alternative income sources, outside the public purse, just like the gravitational force in the galactic ecosystem, is the key force that determines legitimacy in a university setting. The paper contributes to business research methods by fusing metaphorical as well as sense-making research techniques to bring to sharp focus permeability of the university space to enable local economic development.

Differentiated career ecosystems: Toward understanding underrepresentation and ameliorating disparities in STEM

Prior work has identified the career ecosystem as a metaphor that represents the multilevel forces influencing individual careers, with the assumption that all individuals experience the ecosystem similarly. We explore how the career ecosystem might be differentiated for different groups of actors within it because of varying cultural and systemic forces. We focus on STEM careers as an exemplar to understand the contextual factors contributing to the low representation and high occupational turnover of women and other underrepresented groups. Based on the career ecosystem metaphor, we develop a multilevel model linking societal, organizational, and occupational cultures with individual career decision making and behavior in the STEM context and show how the resilience of the career ecosystem is different based on gender and racial/ethnic identity. Additionally, we propose ways to interrupt the ecosystem's feedback loop to create a more resilient STEM career ecosystem for women and members of racial and ethnic minoritized groups.

Pipeline, Pathway, Burrow

Pipeline, Pathway, Burrow

Governance Mechanisms and Business Ecosystem Coordination: The Roles of Opportunistic Behavior and Perceived Performance Risk

The uncertainty of the market environment and the increasing levels of competition as result of globalisation encourage companies to change from stand-alone to collaborative or interconnected network economy in order to gain resilience and agility. This trend has resulted in the emergence of new organisational philosophies that provide an enabling environment that ensures business collaboration. A typical example is a concept known as Business Ecosystem (BE) introduced by Moore which used biological ecosystem metaphor to explain business environments. Since there are different stakeholders with varied interests, there is the need for an introduction of governance mechanisms that regulate stakeholder activities. The current study therefore seeks to examine the effect of governance mechanisms on BE coordination. The study also assesedthe moderating and mediating roles of perceived performance risk and opportunistic behaviour respectively. The data analysis was done using the 173 responses from the institutions from the BE of pharmaceutical Company X in Ghana. The data analysis was run using structural equation modelling (SEM) and both the Amos (v.23) and SPSS (v.23) software packages were used. The results revealed that the two governance mechanisms have positive and significant influence on BE coordination. Opportunistic behaviour only partially mediated the relationship between relational governance and BE coordination. The relationship between opportunistic behaviour and coordination was moderated by perceived performance risk. Based on the results, we propose some recommendations for management to enhance their contact persons performance. Keywords: Business Ecosystem, Relational Governance, Contractual Governance, Perceived Performance Risk, Opportunistic Behavior. DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/14-11-03 Publication date: June 30 th 2022

Where are the entrepreneurs? A call to theorize the micro-foundations and strategic organization of entrepreneurial ecosystems

The “entrepreneurial ecosystem” has become the dominant metaphor in theories explaining how location-specific forces influence entrepreneurship. Despite the progress made by scholars studying entrepreneurial ecosystems, in this essay we contend that the ecosystem metaphor has created an implicit tendency in entrepreneurship theory to emphasize macro-, ecosystem-level dynamics rather than the causal and mediating mechanisms linking entrepreneurs and their local ecosystems. To accompany the macro-dynamics focus in entrepreneurial ecosystem theory, we call for a micro-foundations approach that emphasizes the bidirectional connections between entrepreneurs’ strategizing and organizing activities and their ecosystems. We offer an agenda of theory development opportunities at the intersection of strategic organization and entrepreneurial ecosystems.

E-learning ecosystem metaphor: building sustainable education for the post-COVID-19 era

E-learning ecosystem metaphor: building sustainable education for the post-COVID-19 era

Innovation strategy, high-tech SMEs, and innovation ecosystems: a theoretical essay

How high-tech SMEs use innovations as strategic factors in a multilevel context of an innovation ecosystem? Driven by this research question this theoretical essay aimed to establish theoretical relations among innovations, strategy, high-tech SMEs, and innovation ecosystems. We concluded that the reduction of uncertainties of high-tech industries and SMEs can be achieved through the resources exploitation and attraction from a multilevel perspective of innovation, the innovation ecosystem. We developed propositions that inter-relate the themes and identified gaps on the use of innovations as strategy factors by high-tech SMES in an innovation ecosystem metaphor. Future quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods researches are recommended.

E-learning ecosystem metaphor: building sustainable education for the post-COVID-19 era

E-learning ecosystem metaphor: building sustainable education for the post-COVID-19 era

Re-examining market structures: Resource-Advantage theory and the market offering ecosystem perspective

ABSTRACT Understanding market structure is central to firms’ success. It helps organizations understand competition and in turn develop strategies to improve performance. The market structure literature is traditionally driven by three schools of thoughts, supply-side competition, demand-side competition, and target market-based competition. However, researchers are developing more intricate models of market structures, which are inspired by the ecosystem concept and are supported by network analysis techniques. In this article, we present new insights regarding market structures based on an ecosystem metaphor approach. In particular, we propose that a market structure can be classified using six ecosystem-based relationships (mutualism, commensalism, neutralism, amensalism, parasitism, and competition), which are based on how the sales of a market offering affects the sales of other offerings in the same ecosystem. Based on these relationships, we examine these relationships in detail and provide proposals for future research.

An ecosystem view of English word-formation

Abstract This article takes a function-to-form approach to word-formation in present-day English and argues that the ecosystem metaphor can help morphologists see competition in word-formation and its resolution in a new light. The analysis first draws correspondences between four lexical functions (transcategorial, transconceptual, evaluative, and compacting) and ten formal operations (prefixation, suffixation, compounding, blending, morphostasis, stress shift, clipping, desuffixation, initialization, and replication) and concludes that there is no across-the-board interoperation competition to encode each function, but rather a fairly complementary distribution of the operations between the four functional subsystems. Each functional subsystem is then reviewed in turn and it is shown that, again, there is no full-scale competition at this level, but rather some fairly pronounced tendencies towards complementariness, and, in one case, also towards combination. The broad division of labor within each subsystem can, remarkably, be accounted for in different terms: the conditioning is primarily semantic (with formal subconsiderations) in the transcategorial and transconceptual subsystems while it is formal in the evaluative and compacting subsystems.

Let’s Take the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Metaphor Seriously!

The notion of entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) has garnered considerable attention in the academic discourse. However, quite often this notion is treated as just a biological metaphor that should not be taken too seriously. I challenge this view and ask in a thought experiment what could be learned from the management of natural ecosystems to assist the development of EEs. The outcome is a novel, service-based definition of EEs and five suggested principles for the management of EEs that might advance theorizing on them and future empirical analysis.

Let's take the entrepreneurial ecosystem metaphor seriously!

The notion of entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) has garnered considerable attention in the academic discourse. However, quite often this notion is treated as just a biological metaphor that should not be taken too seriously. I challenge this view and ask in a thought experiment what could be learned from the management of natural ecosystems to assist the development of EEs. The outcome is a novel, service-based definition of EEs and five suggested principles for the management of EEs that might advance theorizing on them and future empirical analysis.

Tensions in Global IT Multisourcing Arrangements: Examining the Barriers to Attaining Common Value Creation

ABSTRACTPrevious contributions on IT multisourcing were mainly focused on strategy and governance. The way in which actors exchange value as well as information and knowledge has been ignored. Given this void, this paper adopts the ecosystem metaphor and concepts from business model thinking to study common value creation and capturing. An exploratory, case-study is used to study a global IT multisourcing arrangement. The results indicate four barriers in ecosystems that may hinder value creation: managed interdependencies, resource integration, ecosystem boundary spanners, and formal inter-organizational contractual agreements. We contribute to IS literature by exploring, beyond the strategic decision to collaborate, the complexity and mutual dependencies of competing and collaborating actors within a global IT multisourcing context.

A new paradigm for the scientific enterprise: nurturing the ecosystem

The institutions of science are in a state of flux. Declining public funding for basic science, the increasingly corporatized administration of universities, increasing “adjunctification” of the professoriate and poor academic career prospects for postdoctoral scientists indicate a significant mismatch between the reality of the market economy and expectations in higher education for science. Solutions to these issues typically revolve around the idea of fixing the career "pipeline", which is envisioned as being a pathway from higher-education training to a coveted permanent position, and then up a career ladder until retirement. In this paper, we propose and describe the term “ecosystem” as a more appropriate way to conceptualize today’s scientific training and the professional landscape of the scientific enterprise. First, we highlight the issues around the concept of “fixing the pipeline”. Then, we articulate our ecosystem metaphor by describing a series of concrete design patterns that draw on peer-to-peer, decentralized, cooperative, and commons-based approaches for creating a new dynamic scientific enterprise.

A new paradigm for the scientific enterprise: nurturing the ecosystem.

The institutions of science are in a state of flux. Declining public funding for basic science, the increasingly corporatized administration of universities, increasing "adjunctification" of the professoriate and poor academic career prospects for postdoctoral scientists indicate a significant mismatch between the reality of the market economy and expectations in higher education for science. Solutions to these issues typically revolve around the idea of fixing the career "pipeline", which is envisioned as being a pathway from higher-education training to a coveted permanent position, and then up a career ladder until retirement. In this paper, we propose and describe the term "ecosystem" as a more appropriate way to conceptualize today's scientific training and the professional landscape of the scientific enterprise. First, we highlight the issues around the concept of "fixing the pipeline". Then, we articulate our ecosystem metaphor by describing a series of concrete design patterns that draw on peer-to-peer, decentralized, cooperative, and commons-based approaches for creating a new dynamic scientific enterprise.

METAPHOR IN NOVEL SEPATU DAHLAN BY KHRISNA PABICHRA

METAPHOR IN NOVEL “ SEPATU DAHLAN” BY KHRISNA PABICHARA (STYLISTIC ANALYSIS) BY OKTARIYANI oktariyani.yani@yahoo.co.id UNIVERSITAS NAHDATUL ULAMA LAMPUNG ABSTRACT. The purpose of this study is to get deep knowledge of metaphor; (1) based on the creation of meaning, ( 2 ) based on images, ( 3 ) based on the meaning of field ecosystem. Describe the functions of the metaphor in the novel Sepatu Dahlan by Krishna Pabichara. The method used this study is content analysis. The approach of this study is stylistic that is part of a qualitative approach. Steps of this research are (a) intensive reading and repeat reading novel that will be research, (b) make notes every phrase, clause, or sentence of metaphor in the novel (c) identify some things there are in objective of this research and (d) do the analysis and do data interpretation.The results of the data analysis found 48 sentences included in the category of metaphor is based on the creation of meaning, which consists of 8 sentences of blank symbols, 28 sentences of natural symbols and private symbols 16 sentences. Found 34 sentences were included in the category of metaphors based on images, which consists of visual 14 sentences, 14 sentences auditory. Taklitis 7 sentences, gustative 2 sentences, images olfaction 1 sentence. Found 55 sentences which are categorized based on the ecosystem metaphor meaning field, which consists of 5 sentences being, Cosmos 10 sentences, 12 sentences energy, to the category of substance is not found in the novel. Terrestrial 3 sentences, the object 3 sentences, living 5 sentences, animate 7 sentences, 10 sentences of a human. While the function of metaphor in the novel of Sepatu Dahlan includes expression language functions and communication of speech acts consisting of illocutionary and perlocutionary. Keywords: Metaphor, stylistic, novel, kinds of metaphor, the function of metaphor.

Community as Curriculum: Nurturing the Ecosystem of Education

AbstractOur ways of living together, communicating, and learning shape social life and our responses to problems such as economic injustice, racism, or climate change. That insight led John Dewey to identify democracy and its engine, democratic education, as the best means for assembling the knowledge necessary to address complex challenges and to ensure that we can live amicably with one another. This article proposes an ecosystem metaphor for democratic education, one that emphasizes the relations between communities and schooling. It calls for a renewed sense of community as curriculum and lays out four major ways in which that can occur. It also discusses contemporary difficulties for democracy and democratic education.

Nature’s Economy and News Ecology

This essay challenges journalism scholars to confront critical ambiguities in the use of the news ecosystem metaphor in discourses on digital-age journalism. This metaphor is frequently used to suggest that news media take shape through spontaneous, self-ordering principles associated with ecological systems. At its worst, the news ecosystem metaphor simply stands for the news marketplace while, quite literally, naturalizing current trends in the diffusion and development of news practices. The intellectual history of the ecosystem concept shows its grounding in liberal economics and its association with a normative view that competitive individualism establishes a natural order. The conventional use of the ecosystem metaphor in debates about digital journalism frames the dynamics of news ecosystems as expressions of competing and symbiotic relations among news producers. This strips from view social, political, and economic decisions and norms that set the stage for the digital media landscape.

Information <em>in</em> the ecosystem: Against the “information ecosystem”

The “information ecosystem” metaphor is widely used in academic libraries and has become nearly ubiquitous when speaking of the information systems that support scholarly communication and varied forms of data sharing and publication. The trending use of this language arises from non-academic applications — for example in big data (the Hadoop ecosystem) or software development (the node.js ecosystem) — and there remains little critical examination of the use of this metaphor. Indeed, the definition of ecosystem as the set of relations between living organisms and their surrounding non-living environment is apparently not directly a part of the metaphor. This paper first describes the emergence of ecological thinking and how it was influenced by early information science and then explores how different “ecologies” are used within the academy, including in the emergent field of information ecology. A short critique of the metaphor is then posed and the paper concludes that the information ecosystem metaphor is useful, yet at the same time there are dangerous elements that render aspects of human societies and natural ecosystems invisible.