TY - JOUR
T1 - Building and sustaining emerging ecosystems through new focal ventures
T2 - Evidence from China's bike-sharing industry
AU - Han, Jin
AU - Zhou, Haibo
AU - Löwik , Sandor
AU - de Weerd-Nederhof, Petra
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors acknowledge financial support from the China Scholarship Council ( 201606130012 ) for developing the paper. We thank the Editor and anonymous reviewers for their invaluable feedback and support. We are grateful for the comprehensive comments our colleagues and the participants at the Research Bootcamp organized by the University of Twente and the University of Groningen; the Sixth ACSB Conference Tokyo; the 2019 IPDMC Conference Leicester; and the 2019 AOM Conference on earlier versions of this manuscript. The usual disclaimers apply.
Funding Information:
The authors acknowledge financial support from the China Scholarship Council (201606130012) for developing the paper. We thank the Editor and anonymous reviewers for their invaluable feedback and support. We are grateful for the comprehensive comments our colleagues and the participants at the Research Bootcamp organized by the University of Twente and the University of Groningen; the Sixth ACSB Conference Tokyo; the 2019 IPDMC Conference Leicester; and the 2019 AOM Conference on earlier versions of this manuscript. The usual disclaimers apply.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021
PY - 2022/1
Y1 - 2022/1
N2 - Ecosystems research has theorized that overcoming economic and coopetitive challenges is crucial for ecosystem development, yet, they largely overlook the effects of sociopolitical challenges and interplays between economic, coopetitive, and sociopolitical challenges to the emergence and viability of ecosystems. By repositioning the sociopolitical challenges in the ecosystem development model, this study investigates how new focal ventures can develop ecosystem-specific strategies to recognize and overcome a combination of economic, coopetitive, and socio-political co-evolution challenges so as to ensure a viable ecosystem. Qualitative results from a multiple- case study of two surviving and two failed emerging bike-sharing ecosystems in China reveal three strategizing forms: (1) niche experimentation, which enables new focal ventures to obtain a more holistic understanding of the co-evolution challenges in economic and sociopolitical ecosystem environments; (2) strategic versatility, whereby ecosystem-specific strategies positively and simultaneously reinforce each other and collectively overcome the multiple co-evolution challenges in two ecosystem environments; and (3) strategic suboptimality, whereby new focal ventures sacrifice the short-term efficacy of specific strategies to reinforce the long-term effectiveness of related strategies to maintain ecosystem-level competitiveness. These findings indicate the nonlinear structural and intertemporal ecosystem dynamics that need to be considered in ecosystem development literature as well as by ecosystem practitioners.
AB - Ecosystems research has theorized that overcoming economic and coopetitive challenges is crucial for ecosystem development, yet, they largely overlook the effects of sociopolitical challenges and interplays between economic, coopetitive, and sociopolitical challenges to the emergence and viability of ecosystems. By repositioning the sociopolitical challenges in the ecosystem development model, this study investigates how new focal ventures can develop ecosystem-specific strategies to recognize and overcome a combination of economic, coopetitive, and socio-political co-evolution challenges so as to ensure a viable ecosystem. Qualitative results from a multiple- case study of two surviving and two failed emerging bike-sharing ecosystems in China reveal three strategizing forms: (1) niche experimentation, which enables new focal ventures to obtain a more holistic understanding of the co-evolution challenges in economic and sociopolitical ecosystem environments; (2) strategic versatility, whereby ecosystem-specific strategies positively and simultaneously reinforce each other and collectively overcome the multiple co-evolution challenges in two ecosystem environments; and (3) strategic suboptimality, whereby new focal ventures sacrifice the short-term efficacy of specific strategies to reinforce the long-term effectiveness of related strategies to maintain ecosystem-level competitiveness. These findings indicate the nonlinear structural and intertemporal ecosystem dynamics that need to be considered in ecosystem development literature as well as by ecosystem practitioners.
KW - n/a OA procedure
U2 - 10.1016/j.techfore.2021.121261
DO - 10.1016/j.techfore.2021.121261
M3 - Article
VL - 174
JO - Technological forecasting and social change
JF - Technological forecasting and social change
SN - 0040-1625
M1 - 121261
ER -