A review of the ecosystem concept — Towards coherent ecosystem design

The ecosystem concept is of increasing significance in the field of the management of technology and innovation. This paper provides an overview of 90 previous studies using the ecosystem concept in this field, all published in leading academic journals, and clarifies their four major research streams. The first stream is the industrial ecology perspective, which is based on the concept of industrial ecosystems. The second is the business ecosystem perspective. This approach is based on the theory of organizational boundaries. Within the business ecosystem perspective, some influential scholars emphasize platform management, which represents the third approach. The fourth approach is the multi-actor network…

• JS
  Japan Society for the Promotion of Science

  Awards: 25780244, 26285079, 26380507
• JS
  Japan Science and Technology Agency
• RI
  Research Institute of Science and Technology for Society