Valuing Value in Innovation Ecosystems
Publication - May 2021
This article aims to uncover the processes of developing sustainable business models in innovation ecosystems. Innovation ecosystems with sustainability goals often consist of cross-sector partners and need to manage three tensions: the tension of value creation versus value capture, the tension of mutual value versus individual value, and the tension of gaining value versus losing value. The fact that these tensions affect all actors differently makes the process of developing a sustainable business model challenging.
2 Patterns of Valuing Value
Based on a study of 4 sustainably innovative cross-sector collaborations, we propose that innovation ecosystems that develop a sustainable business model engage in a process of valuing value in which they search for a result that satisfies all actors. We find 2 different patterns of valuing value: collective orchestration and continuous search. We describe these patterns and the conditions that give rise to them.
Collaboration between Cross-sector Actors
The identification of the two patterns opens up a research agenda that can shed further light on the conditions that need to be in place in order for an innovation ecosystem to develop effective sustainable business models. For practice, our findings show how cross-sector actors in innovation ecosystems may collaborate when developing a business model around emerging sustainability-oriented innovations.
Authors
- Inge Oskam
- Bart Bossink
- Ard-Pieter de Man
Circular Design and Business research group
Designing products circularly, with the highest possible quality, and reusing discarded products and materials is the focus of the Circular Design and Business research group. The research group is investigating which new ways of designing and producing products, and doing business best fit this purpose.