Niche Creation Research Articles

Assessing the Sustainability of County-level Rural E-commerce Ecosystems in China: A Multi-dimensional Framework

2. Enhancing the sustainability of the rural e-commerce industry chain and achieving sustainable development within County-level Rural E-commerce Ecosystems (CREE) is a crucial endeavor in China's rural revitalization phase. This study aims to design an assessment tool named SREEM to evaluate the sustainability of China County-level Rural E-commerce Ecosystem. it provides a comprehensive exposition of SREEM, elucidating its foundational principles and indicator origins. From the dimensions of Robustness, Niche Creation, and Endogenous Development Capacity, the study explicates the various levels of indicators within the preliminary SREEM framework. Employing a combined approach of Modified Delphi and AHP, the study screens SREEM assessment indicators and determines indicator weight. The final iteration of SREEM includes 3 first-level indicators, 8 second-level indicators, 23 third-level indicators, and 35 fourth-level indicators.

Biological Cargo: Exosomes and their Role in Cancer Progression and Metastasis.

Cancer cells are among the many types of cells that release exosomes, which are nanovesicles. Because of their many potential applications, exosomes have recently garnered much attention from cancer researchers. The bioactive substances that exosomes release as cargo have been the subject of several investigations. The substances in question may operate as biomarkers for diagnosis or affect apoptosis, the immune system, the development and spread of cancer, and other processes. Others have begun to look at exosomes in experimental therapeutic trials because they believe they may be useful in the treatment of cancer. This review started with a short description of exosome biogenesis and key features. Next, the potential of tumor-derived exosomes and oncosomes to influence the immune system throughout the development of cancer, as well as alter tumor microenvironments (TMEs) and pre-metastatic niche creation, was investigated. Finally, there was talk of exosomes' possible use in cancer treatment. Furthermore, there is emerging consensus about the potential application of exosomes to be biological reprogrammers of cancer cells, either as carriers of naturally occurring chemicals, including anticancer medications, or as carriers of anticancer vaccines for immunotherapy as well as boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT). We briefly review the key ideas and logic behind this intriguing therapy recommendation.

Organ Evolution: Emergence of Multicellular Function.

Instances of multicellularity across the tree of life have fostered the evolution of complex organs composed of distinct cell types that cooperate, producing emergent biological functions. How organs originate is a fundamental evolutionary problem that has eluded deep mechanistic and conceptual understanding. Here I propose a cell- to organ-level transitions framework, whereby cooperative division of labor originates and becomes entrenched between cell types through a process of functional niche creation, cell type subfunctionalization, and irreversible ratcheting of cell interdependencies. Comprehending this transition hinges on explaining how these processes unfold molecularly in evolving populations. Recent single-cell transcriptomic studies and analyses of terminal fate specification indicate that cellular functions are conferred by modular gene expression programs. These discrete components of functional variation may be deployed or combined within cells to introduce new properties into multicellular niches, or partitioned across cells to establish division of labor. Tracing gene expression program evolution at the level of single cells in populations may reveal transitions toward organ complexity.

Top management team social capital and business model innovation: moderating role of business ecosystem health

PurposeThis study explores the influence of the Top Management Team (TMT) social capital on business model innovation in business ecosystems.Design/methodology/approachThis study examines the impact of internal and external TMT social capital on enterprises’ business model innovation, explores the relationship between internal and external TMT social capital, and investigates how business ecosystem health moderates the relationship between external TMT social capital and enterprises’ business model innovation. These hypotheses are proposed and tested using a hierarchical regression analysis with data from 168 Chinese firms.FindingsFirst, both internal and external TMT social capital exert a significantly positive influence on an enterprise’s business model innovation. Second, internal TMT social capital positively contributes to the development of external TMT social capital, affecting business model innovation. Finally, the moderating effect of business ecosystem health on the relationship between external TMT social capital and business model innovation depends on the dimensions. Specifically, the productivity of the business ecosystem negatively moderates this relationship, whereas the niche creation capability of the business ecosystem has a positive moderating effect.Originality/valueThese findings enrich prior research on business model innovation within the business ecosystem, thoroughly exploring the critical role of TMT social capital. This study reveals the diverse impacts of internal and external TMT social capital on business model innovation and the intricate relationship between these elements. Furthermore, it emphasizes that the success of enterprise’s business model innovation within a business ecosystem depends on the alignment and adaptation to dynamic ecosystem conditions. By presenting these insights, this study provides valuable practical implications for enterprises aiming to cultivate social capital within business ecosystem to facilitate business model innovation.

Software Architectural Practices: Influences on the Open Source Ecosystem Health

The health state of a software ecosystem has been determined by its capacity of growth and longevity. Three health indicators represent a healthy software ecosystem: robustness, productivity, and niche creation. Studies focusing on understanding the causes and processes of the state of health of ecosystems have used these indicators largely. Researchers have intensified studies to understand how to achieve a good health state. Despite the growing number of studies, there is little knowledge about influences and actions to achieve health and, more specifically, that consider the effects of the software architecture on the ecosystem. This article presents a study exploring seven open source ecosystems within different domains to describe the influence of architectural practices on the software ecosystem health in terms of their motivations and effects. Our main goal was to understand how the software architecture and related practices can contribute to a healthy ecosystem. We conducted a netnography-based study to gather practices used to create and maintain the software architecture of these ecosystems. Our study brings evidence that architectural practices play a critical role in the achievement of ecosystems’ health. We found fifty practices that have influenced different aspects of health indicators. We highlight the importance of five influential factors – business goals, experience, requirements, resources, and time-to-market – for motivating the adoption of such practices. These factors may also contribute to understanding different strategies used to achieve a good health state. Moreover, we proposed a novel health indicator, trustworthiness, that accounts for the normal operation of a healthy software ecosystem.

Explaining Policy Failure in China

AbstractWhy do policy experimentation regimes breakdown? And, if there are recognizable patterns of experimental failure, what might explain the variation? Focusing on aviation, finance and food safety, this article considers why a policy style that has been credited with China's successes in the past is failing to address governance challenges in these sectors at present. The article moves beyond discussions of policy mis-implementation by reframing experimental failure as a case of policy maladaptation under conditions of complexity and ambiguity. Maladaptation describes how approaches used in previous periods to foster adaptation can inadvertently make a system less resilient in the future. The analysis shows how the degree of consolidation of previously successful experimental regimes lends itself to certain types of maladaptation in the present: consolidated regimes are unable to generate policy alternatives (aviation), moderately consolidated regimes are maladapted for selection (finance), and unconsolidated regimes impede niche creation (food safety).

Internal Architecture Differentially Affects Thermal Insulation in the Walls of Common Blackbird Turdus merula Nests

Nest construction may result in niche creation by the bird, i.e., modification of the immediate environment in terms of temperature or humidity. Here thermal insulation of nests of the Common Blackbird Turdus merula was investigated using a heat source placed inside the cup. The temperature profile of the nest wall was recorded using thermistors placed at different positions in the nest wall. Temperatures were affected by the layers in the wall with the grass cup lining and mud cup offering more insulation than the outer wall. Thermal conductance of the wall of Common Blackbird nests was relatively high compared to other reports for this variable in other passerine species from Australia. Variation among Common Blackbird nests in terms of temperature differences across layers, and thermal conductance overall, correlated with the thickness of the grass cup lining. Thermal insulation provided by a nest wall is dependent on the thicknesses and types of materials used in each part of the wall. Previous studies using nest deconstruction have demonstrated that the various layers in a wall have differing thermal characteristics. This is the first report of clear differences in the temperature profile across the different parts of the intact nest wall. Whether this pattern is also observed in nests of other species requires further investigation. The placement of different materials within the nest wall by the bird is not a random process and the results support the idea that the avian nest is involved in niche creation.

Toward cultural and creative industry: Chinese eSports through a business ecosystem lens

ABSTRACT The field of electronic sports (eSports) is thriving worldwide but has received limited attention as a cultural and creative industry (CCI). This study is the first to employ three layers (productivity, robustness, and niche creation) of the business ecosystem (BE) to systematically examine the flourishing eSports sector and its development as a CCI-BE. It also maps out the dynamic and emerging stakeholders that have contributed to the eSports ecosystem. We conducted content analysis combined with observations, fifty interviews with elite stakeholders, and analysis of financial and investment data. We found that the development of eSports as a CCI-BE reflects great potential and precarity. First, the business agenda of the media conglomerate Tencent aligns with the ‘cultural confidence’ slogan proposed by the government, thus ensuring the robustness and stability of the eSports ecosystem. Second, municipal governments, local real estate developers, and eSports tournaments are increasingly interconnected and their contemporary business models and innovation activities in the eSports industry have co-evolved. Third, the role of real estate developers remains nascent without the ability to coordinate and co-evolve with the eSports value chain. eSports may provide a novel converging territory for contemporary cultural and creative industries/traits in the Chinese digital society.

Introduction to the Virtual Special Issue: Strategy Science’s Contributions to Doctoral Reading Lists

Introduction to the Virtual Special Issue: <i>Strategy Science</i>’s Contributions to Doctoral Reading Lists

The Open Society and Its Complexities

<i>The Open Society and Its Complexities</i>

FASED: A Framework for Data Ecosystems Health Evaluation

The growing availability of data in digital media has contributed to the creation of a large number of data ecosystems. However, having successful Data Ecosystem is still a challenge. In order to prevent the failure of a Data Ecosystem and ensure its survival, evaluating its health becomes fundamental. In a general way, the health of a Data Ecosystem can be defined as its ability to grow and survive over time. Indicators such as productivity, robustness, niche creation and sustainability can be employed to evaluate the health of a Data Ecosystem. In this paper, we propose a framework for data Ecosystem health evaluation composed of a set of indicators and metrics, which assess the Data Ecosystem’s current state and its ability to stay healthy over time. The results obtained when using the proposed framework offers evidence to assist in decision making on how data has being published and consumed in a Data Ecosystem, as well as to evaluate which ecosystems are more prosperous or need more investments.

Pathophysiology of Coagulation and Emerging Roles for Extracellular Vesicles in Coagulation Cascades and Disorders.

The notion of blood coagulation dates back to the ancient Greek civilization. However, the emergence of innovative scientific discoveries that started in the seventeenth century formulated the fundamentals of blood coagulation. Our understanding of key coagulation processes continues to evolve, as novel homeostatic and pathophysiological aspects of hemostasis are revealed. Hemostasis is a dynamic physiological process, which stops bleeding at the site of injury while maintaining normal blood flow within the body. Intrinsic and extrinsic coagulation pathways culminate in the homeostatic cessation of blood loss, through the sequential activation of the coagulation factors. Recently, the cell-based theory, which combines these two pathways, along with newly discovered mechanisms, emerged to holistically describe intricate in vivo coagulation mechanisms. The complexity of these mechanisms becomes evident in coagulation diseases such as hemophilia, Von Willebrand disease, thrombophilia, and vitamin K deficiency, in which excessive bleeding, thrombosis, or unnecessary clotting, drive the development and progression of diseases. Accumulating evidence implicates cell-derived and platelet-derived extracellular vesicles (EVs), which comprise microvesicles (MVs), exosomes, and apoptotic bodies, in the modulation of the coagulation cascade in hemostasis and thrombosis. As these EVs are associated with intercellular communication, molecular recycling, and metastatic niche creation, emerging evidence explores EVs as valuable diagnostic and therapeutic approaches in thrombotic and prothrombotic diseases.

The Key Success Factors for the Operation of SME Cluster Business Ecosystem

With the emphasis on cross-industry cooperation and the increasing complexity of the consumer market, an open and innovative business ecosystem has become a trend, and companies are no longer competing on their own, but rather between systems and systems. This study explores the development of SME cluster operations from a business ecosystem perspective. It summarizes the influencing dimensions and relevant factors of SME cluster ecosystem operation through literature research and expert interviews. We utilize the Fuzzy DEMATEL method and Interpretive Structural Model and classified by classification of matrix multiplication method. At the same time, this study figures out the factors’ correlation and characteristics and further develops their management implications to provide a reference for enterprises and subsequent research. The results reveal that robustness and niche creation with significant influence and low dependence are considered critical factors to influence other factors. Therefore, decision-makers should consider prioritizing control over factors in this category.

Conceptualising institutional complexity in the upscaling of community enterprises: Lessons from renewable energy and carsharing

Community enterprises may play pivotal roles in sustainability transitions but have received limited attention in the transitions literature. This paper proposes a framework for theorising the challenges that community enterprises face as they scale up due to the rising institutional complexity of their organisational model, combining the institutional logics of community, market, and corporation. We conceptualise the upscaling processes of community enterprises by distinguishing between the community volunteerism phase, the niche creation phase and the niche expansion phase. We formulate nine propositions on how institutional complexity arises and on possible mechanisms to manage it in each phase of the upscaling process. Our theoretical framework is supported by empirical research on carsharing and renewable energy initiatives in Western Europe. The paper concludes with some avenues for further research on community enterprises in sustainability transitions.

Dialectic tensions driving niche creation – A case study of a local energy system

Local energy systems (LESs), such as energy communities and microgrids, are seen as significant contributors to the energy transition, but their creation requires contested institutional changes to the centralized energy regime. We explore the creation process of a groundbreaking LES project from the multi-level and dialectic perspectives. Our results show a tension-driven institutional change process that includes the dialectic perspective's four principles: institutional contradictions, praxis, social construction, and totality. Based on the learnings of the case study, we highlight the effect of institutional contradictions on incumbent actors’ agency, boundary spanners’ role in triggering praxis, and tensions in niche–regime interactions. We show with the case study that the dialectic perspective together with the multi-level perspective aid in understanding the creation process and further aid in designing future LES creation processes by providing normative descriptions of contradictions, tensions, and opportune solutions for them beforehand. We also discuss the limitations of the approach.

Raising the Bar: Values-Driven Niche Creation in U.S. Bean-to-Bar Chocolate

We examine how entrepreneurs might build a viable, values-driven niche. Extant templates for niche creation typically employed in moral markets depend on instrumentally rational logics that privilege economic ends such as profitability and efficiency. Entrepreneurs seeking to construct a nascent niche whose purpose and objectives include the amelioration of social ills, however, may find such templates inadequate. Using the emergence of the U.S. bean-to-bar chocolate niche, through which entrepreneurs attempt to address the social and environmental shortcomings of conventional chocolate production, we demonstrate that constructing an alternative model for niche creation is feasible. Most bean-to-bar entrepreneurs deliberately opted out of extant private regulation initiatives, developing instead alternative encompassing, values-driven sourcing and cooperative relationships, which we term collaborative governance. This is enacted throughout the niche by promoting shared values, best practices, and transparency and is supported by strategic meaning-making work to cultivate customers. Together, these three values-driven strategies form a novel template of niche creation based not on cognitive repositioning or exploiting exogenous change within existing structures and institutions, but on a reconceptualization of how markets might work to support the implementation of nonmarket goals. Based on our mixed-methods analysis, we find that, instead of hoping to accomplish nonmarket goals through established market structures, entrepreneurs built a niche centered on the achievement of specific social goals. Our findings suggest that to understand the strategies supporting emergent socially oriented markets, researchers must explore the intersections of values, entrepreneurial motivations, and operational complexities.

Communities of Innovation for Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction: Niche Creation and Anticipation

This paper presents the concept of communities of innovation for climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction. The paper discusses the added value of these types of communities to help address uncertain futures from the impact of climate change, which are highly context dependent. The paper frames these communities of innovation as part of innovation ecosystems in order to reflect on their key elements and added value. We argue that climate change and disaster risk management responses need to meet the needs of those experiencing problems with those that can offer solutions in distinct localities, including those that could fund or finance potential innovative solutions. Developing communities of innovation with the specific task of anticipating and creating niche solutions has been gaining traction in the EU. Some developed under the H2020 BRIGAID project are analysed here for other emergent COIs, as future-oriented communities tasked with the challenge to reduce disaster risks and enhance the climate resilience in their own spaces. This paper reflects on the experience of participants in these communities and their reflections and experience on whether these offer a useful form of organisation to anticipate future challenges, create niche solutions, and bring innovations to the market. The paper concludes with how communities of innovation can contribute to niche design and narratives of change to help achieve social and environmental resilience to reframe and help transition and transform current systems into more resilient, future-oriented communities.

Recent scientific/intellectual movements in biomedicine

This study compares the trajectories of recent scientific/intellectual movements (SIMs) in biomedicine: evidence-based medicine, translational medicine, precision medicine, personalized medicine, stratified medicine, and genomic medicine. Drawing on bibliometric analysis of these six SIMs, this study identifies three patterns: field integration, niche creation, and disruptive insurgence. Field integration SIMs such as evidence-based medicine and translational medicine are characterized by centrality of key concept papers of the SIM in co-citation networks and dense institutional and country collaboration networks, signaling the resonance of the SIM to the broader biomedical community. In contrast, niche creation SIMs such as stratified medicine and genomic medicine are characterized by lower levels of annual scientific production, the lack centrality or connectivity of key concept papers in co-citation networks, and less density in collaboration networks. Disruptive insurgence SIMs such as precision medicine and personalized medicine are characterized by a high level of annual scientific production, driven by a smaller core of institutions and countries. This is likely a transitional stage as field disrupting SIMs can either become integrated with the broader field or become influential in niches. Proponents of the current push for precision medicine should ensure that a wide range of institutions and specialties be included while being mindful of the dominance of cancer and genomic approaches to health and medicine.

Spatial perspectives on niche empowerment: an agent-based model

ABSTRACT This paper aims at increasing our understanding of the role of space dimensions in niche evolution dynamics. To accomplish this goal, an agent-based model is developed, locating agents in geographical space. The model is then used to show how local niches built on geographical proximity perform differently from global niches built on relative proximity, in terms of the timing of niche creation, the velocity of niche maturation, average profit, environmental uncertainty and knowledge exchange. It concludes that the spatial dimension of niches should be considered in the development of policies to promote sustainable transitions.

Mate competition during pseudocopulation in shipworms.

Shipworms are predominantly wood-eating bivalves that play fundamental roles in biodegradation, niche creation and nutrient cycling across a range of marine ecosystems. Shipworms remain confined to the wood they colonize as larvae; however, continual feeding and rapid growth to large sizes degrade both food source and habitat. This unique lifestyle has led to the evolution of a stunning diversity of reproductive strategies, from broadcast spawning to spermcasting, larval brooding and extreme sexual size dimorphism with male dwarfism. Some species also engage in pseudocopulation, a form of direct fertilization where groups of neighbouring individuals simultaneously inseminate one another via their siphons-the only part of the animal extending beyond the burrow. Among the Bivalvia, this exceptionally rare behaviour is unique to shipworms and remains infrequently observed and poorly understood. Herein, we document pseudocopulation with video footage in the giant feathery shipworm (Bankia setacea) and novel competitive behaviours, including siphon wrestling, mate guarding and the removal of a rival's spermatozoa from the siphons of a recipient. As successful sperm transfer is likely greater for larger individuals with longer siphons, we suggest that these competitive behaviours are a factor selecting for rapid growth and large size in species that engage in pseudocopulation.