Full Text 02

DOCTORA L T H E S I S
Competitive Advantage Strategies in

Industrial Marketing
Using an Ecosystem Approach
Jeandri Robertson
Industrial Marketing
Competitive Advantage Strategies in Industrial
Marketing: Using an Ecosystem Approach
DOCTORAL DISSERTATION
By
JEANDRI ROBERTSON
15 March 2021
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Supervisors:
Associate Professor Tim Foster
Professor Albert Caruana
Luleå University of Technology (LTU)

Division Business Administration and Industrial Engineering
Department of Social Sciences, Technology and Arts,
Luleå, Sweden, SE-971 87
Tel: +27 (0) 83 458 8224
ABSTRACT
Intensified competitive pressures related to a dynamic and hypercompetitive global economy,

technological advances, unpredictable customers and competitors, and blurring industry
boundaries, have compelled industrial marketers to reconsider the strategic imperatives of the
organization, in relation to the competitive context in which it operates. As it becomes
increasingly difficult for individual firms to identify and respond to external competitive
challenges and changes independently, new organizational perspectives have been proposed to
thrive in the presence of these forces. The metaphor of the ‘ecosystem’ has increasingly been
used in research and practice to highlight the interdependencies between organizations and
their environment, providing a renewed way of thinking about the co-evolution, collaboration
and creation of value between actors. Although industrial marketers’ knowledge of ecosystems
is rapidly developing, the field is still unfolding and relatively little is known about the
differences between these ecosystems, especially from a competitive advantage perspective.
To deepen our understanding of its value from an industrial marketing point of view, the current
research sought to create conceptual and terminological clarity regarding the ecosystem
concept and examine the competitive dynamics present within and between these ecosystems.
The central research problem guiding this research is: How is competitive advantage achieved
through an ecosystem approach in industrial marketing?
Contemporary strategy literature converging at the crossroads between organizational

evolution and a fast-changing competitive landscape, proposes that relationships and the
resources and capabilities embedded within these relationships are key to the attainment of
competitive advantage. As such, theoretical streams that incorporate this line of thought are
used as lenses through which to assess competitive advantage. The following research
questions emerged:
RQ1: What are the drivers of competitive advantage through a network analysis approach to
ecosystems?
RQ2: How does social capital impact the competitive advantage of ecosystems?
RQ3: How do dynamic capabilities impact the competitive advantage of ecosystems?
RQ4: How do resource- and capability-based theories explain competition in ecosystems?
Four papers were constructed as part of the empirical part of this research. Two papers assessed
competition and competitiveness within ecosystems, with the other two examining competitive
advantage between ecosystems. Two of the papers followed a quantitative descriptive
approach, one paper followed a quantitative exploratory approach, while a qualitative
exploratory approach was utilized in the fourth paper. The respective approaches were deemed
best suited to address the respective research questions.
The research contributes to the body of knowledge in that it highlights the centrality of
knowledge exploration in leveraging, maintaining and attaining advantage. It also points to a
cyclical knowledge generating process within the ecosystem context, which centers on
exploring, then exploiting and finally, transforming of knowledge for sustainable competitive
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advantage. The dissertation follows a narrative of first sketching the relevance of the ecosystem
metaphor within the industrial marketing context, leading to the identification of gaps in the
research and an introduction to the research problem. The evolution of the ecosystem concept
is then reviewed, laying bare its characteristics, extant definitions and different types of
ecosystems. Theoretical perspectives of strategy, inherently embedded in theoretical
assumptions of how competition works, are then discussed. The research questions are then
introduced, including the respective papers addressing each research question, together with
the research methodology followed. The dissertation concludes with a summary of the findings,
which also provides a discussion on the research contributions, managerial implications, noted
limitations and suggested areas for future research. The four papers are presented as
Appendices, of which three have been published and the fourth is in its second round of review.
Keywords: ecosystems; competitive advantage; competitiveness; network theory; social

capital theory; resource-based view; dynamic capabilities; transient advantage; innovation;
knowledge; entrepreneurship
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ABSTRACT
En allt intensivare konkurrens, kopplad till en dynamisk global ekonomi, tekniska framsteg,
oförutsägbara kunder och konkurrenter samt suddiga branschgränser, har tvingat industriella
marknadsförare att ompröva vad som är strategiskt nödvändigt för organisationen i förhållande
till den kontext den verkar inom. Eftersom det blir allt svårare för enskilda företag att identifiera
och möta upp externa utmaningar och förändringar i konkurrensen, har nya organisatoriska
perspektiv föreslagits för att företagen ska kunna lyckas under dessa förutsättningar. Metaforen
för ”ekosystemet” har i allt större utsträckning använts i forskning och praktik för att lyfta fram
det ömsesidiga beroendet mellan organisationer och deras omgivning, vilket innebär ett nytt
sätt att tänka på samutveckling, samarbete och värdeskapande mellan aktörer. Även om
industriella marknadsförares kunskap om ekosystem ökar snabbt, så är området fortfarande
under utveckling och relativt lite är känt om skillnaderna mellan olika ekosystem, särskilt när
det gäller konkurrensfördelar. För att fördjupa förståelsen för värdet av ekosystem från ett
industriellt marknadsföringsperspektiv har studierna i denna avhandling sökt skapa konceptuell
och terminologisk klarhet kring ekosystemkonceptet, samt undersöka den konkurrensdynamik
som finns inom och mellan dessa ekosystem. Det centrala forskningsproblemet för
avhandlingen är: Hur uppnås konkurrensfördelar genom ett ekosystemsynsätt inom industriell
marknadsföring?
Enligt samtida strategilitteratur är relationer, och de resurser och möjligheter som dessa
relationer innebär, nyckeln till att uppnå konkurrensfördelar. Därför används teoretiska
strömningar som innehåller denna tankegång som en lins genom vilken konkurrensfördelar kan
utvärderas. Följande forskningsfrågor har formulerats:
FF1: Vilka är drivkrafterna för konkurrensfördelar genom ett nätverksanalyssynsätt för

ekosystem?
FF2: Hur påverkar socialt kapital ekosystemens konkurrensfördelar?
FF3: Hur påverkar dynamisk kapacitet ekosystemens konkurrensfördelar?
FF4: Hur kan resurs- och kapacitetsbaserade teorier förklara konkurrens i ekosystem?
Fyra artiklar utgör en del av empirin i denna forskning. I två artiklar utvärderas konkurrens och
konkurrenskraft inom ekosystem, medan konkurrensfördelar mellan ekosystem undersöks i de
andra två artiklarna. Två av artiklarna följer ett kvantitativt beskrivande tillvägagångssätt, en
har ett kvantitativt utforskande tillvägagångssätt, medan ett kvalitativt utforskande
tillvägagångssätt användes i den fjärde artikeln. Dessa metoder ansågs bäst lämpade för att
undersöka respektive forskningsfrågor.
Forskningen bidrar till befintlig kunskap genom att den belyser vikten av kunskapsutforskande
när det gäller att utnyttja, upprätthålla och uppnå fördelar. Studien pekar också på en cyklisk
kunskapsgenererande process inom ekosystemkontexten, som fokuserar på att utforska, sedan
utnyttja, och slutligen transformera kunskap för att uppnå hållbara konkurrensfördelar.
Avhandlingen följer ett narrativ där ekosystemmetaforens relevans inom kontexten industriell
marknadsföring först beskrivs, vilket leder till identifiering av kunskapsgap och en introduktion
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till forskningsproblemet. Utvecklingen av ekosystemkonceptet granskas sedan och dess
egenskaper, existerande definitioner och olika typer av ekosystem beskrivs. Teoretiska
perspektiv på strategi, som är infogade i teoretiska antaganden om hur konkurrens fungerar,
diskuteras sedan. Därefter introduceras forskningsfrågorna samt de artiklar som behandlar
respektive forskningsfråga, tillsammans med den forskningsmetodik som använts.
Avhandlingen avslutas med en sammanfattning av resultaten, som också innehåller en
diskussion om bidrag till forskning, rekommendationer till beslutsfattare, begränsningar, samt
föreslagna områden för framtida forskning. De fyra artiklarna presenteras som bilagor, varav
tre har publicerats och den fjärde är under granskning i andra omgången.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I wish to extend my sincere gratitude to the following people for their contribution and
support:
Thank you to my supervisors, Associate Professor Tim Foster and Professor Albert Caruana,
for their assistance, guidance and encouragement throughout the study;
A heartfelt thank you to Professors Esmail Salehi-Sangari, Åsa Wallström, and Maria Ek
Styvén for their efforts on the PhD program and all the support along the way;
To Professor Leyland Pitt, thank you for your generosity and for continually conveying a spirit
of adventure and enjoyment in regard to research and scholarship;
To Caitlin Ferreira, your immense drive and optimism have inspired me – I sincerely appreciate
the camaraderie;
Thank you to all the colleagues I have had the privilege of working with – in particular to
Anna Näppä, Christine Pitt and Tess Eriksson, who are now close friends;
Thank you to my family for their unwavering support, in particular my parents, who instilled
in me that well done is better than well said;
My children, Ami and Aren, ancora imparo, you two are my anchor and my fuel;
Last, but not least, to Thomas, thank you for giving me that Dr. Seuss book, ‘Oh, the
places you’ll go’, many years ago. Little did you know where life would take us, yet you
have always been up for the adventure – thank you for living a full life with me.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE RESEARCH
1.1. Introduction to the Research Area 1
1.1.1. The Ecosystems Concept 1
1.1.2. Defining Ecosystems 3
1.1.3. The Relevance of Ecosystems to Industrial Marketing 5
1.1.4. Why Ecosystem Competitiveness Matters to Industrial Marketing 7
1.1.4.1. Interorganizational Collaboration 9
1.1.4.2. Dependency on Resources and Capabilities Outside of 9

Direct Control of One Single Organization
1.1.4.3. Dynamic Connections 9
1.1.4.4. Competing Beyond Traditional Industry Boundaries 10
1.2. Research Gap Identification 10
1.3. Research Scope 18
1.4. Research Problem 19
1.5. Chapter Summary 19
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. The Evolution and Development of the Ecosystem Concept 20
2.2. Ecosystem Characteristics 21
2.3. Ecosystem Types 25
2.3.1. Innovation Ecosystem 29
2.3.2. Entrepreneurial Ecosystem 30
2.3.3. Knowledge Ecosystem 31
2.4. Theoretical Perspectives: Ecosystems and Competitive Advantage 32
2.4.1. Network Theory and Social Capital 34
2.4.1.1. Structural Dimension 35
2.4.1.2. Relational Dimension 35
2.4.1.3. Cognitive Dimension 36
2.4.2. Resource-Based View and Dynamic Capabilities 36
2.5. Development of Research Questions 37
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2.5.1. Theoretical Focus of Research Questions 38
2.5.2. Ecosystem Focus of Research Questions 38
2.6. Formulation of Research Questions 39
2.6.1. Research Question 1 is addressed by Research Paper 1 40
2.7. Delineation: Construct, Context and Units of Analysis 48
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY
3.1. Introduction 50
3.2. Research Approach 50
3.3. Research Strategy and Design 53
3.3.1. Addressing Research Question 1 54
3.3.1.1. Research Design 54
3.3.1.2. Research Method 55
3.3.2.2. Research Method 56
3.3.3.2. Data and Sample 58
3.3.3.3. Measures 58
3.3.3.4. Data Analysis 59
3.3.4.1. Research Design and Research Method 59
3.3.4.2. Data Collection 60
3.4. Quality Criteria 61
3.5. Structure of Individual Papers 62
3.5.1. Paper 1 62
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3.5.2. Paper 2 64
3.5.3. Paper 3 65
3.5.4. Paper 4 66
CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS
4.1. Introduction 69
4.2. Findings: Research Question 1 69
4.4.1. Knowledge Creation and Innovation Performance 79
4.4.2. Knowledge Diffusion and Innovation Performance 79
4.4.3. Knowledge Absorption and Innovation Performance 80
4.4.4. Knowledge Impact and Innovation Performance 80
4.5.1. Findings Based on Ecosystem Factors 85
4.5.1.1. Actors 86
4.5.1.2. Activities 86
4.5.1.3. Alignment 87
4.5.1.4. Artifact 88
4.5.2 Findings Based on Strategic Determinants of Ecosystems 88
4.5.2.1. The Competitive Context 88
4.5.2.2. Market Attentiveness 89
4.5.2.3. Organizational Boundaries 90
4.5.2.4. The Sustainability of Strategic Advantage 90
4.6. Overview of Overall Findings 90
4.7. Theoretical Contributions 92
4.8. Managerial Implications 96
4.8.1. Interorganizational Collaboration: Leveraging Knowledge 96
4.8.2. Dependency on Resources and Capabilities Outside of Direct 96

Control of One Single Organization: Outside-in Strategic
Orientation
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4.8.3. Dynamic Connections: Adaptation, Integration and 97
Reconfiguration
4.8.4. Competing Beyond Traditional Industry Boundaries: 97

Advantage for All
4.9. Limitations and Suggested Areas for Future Research 98
LIST OF REFERENCES 101
LIST OF APPENDICES
Appendix A: Paper 1 – Entrepreneurial Ecosystems and the Public Sector: A 119

Bibliographic Analysis
Appendix B: Paper 2 – Leveraging Social Capital in University-Industry Knowledge 135

Transfer Strategies: A Comparative Positioning Framework
Appendix C: Paper 3 – Innovation Performance: The Effect of Knowledge Based 149

Dynamic Capabilities in Cross-Country Innovation Ecosystems
Appendix D: Paper 4 – Competition in Knowledge Ecosystems: A Theory 195

Elaboration Approach using a Case Study
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Organizational structure of ecosystems 6
Figure 2: Three identified research gaps in the ecosystem literature 17
Figure 3: Ecosystem typology 29
Figure 4: Overview of research questions 40
Figure 5: Schema of research problem, research questions and papers 47
Figure 6: Delineation of construct, contexts and unit of analysis 48
Figure 7: Overview of research questions 50
Figure 8: Number of annual published articles on entrepreneurial ecosystems 69

between 1995 to 2019
Figure 9: Top ten Web of Science categories in which published articles on 70

entrepreneurial ecosystems appear between 1995-2019
Figure 10: Most commonly occurring keywords on entrepreneurial ecosystems 73

(1995 to 2019)
Figure 11: Knowledge transfer strategy delineation, as adapted from von Krogh et 75
al. (2001)
Figure 12: Social capital university-industry knowledge transfer framework 77
Figure 13: Research model and hypotheses 81
Figure 14: Innovation ecosystem framework centered around a knowledge-based 83

dynamic capabilities’ approach
Figure 15: An overview of the findings of the dissertation, according to the four 91
research questions and accompanying papers
Figure 16: Illustrative representation of broader ecosystem-level theoretical 96

contributions
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LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Ecosystem definitions 4
Table 2: Thematic organization of selected industrial marketing research articles 11

employing an ecosystem approach
Table 3: Key characteristics of ecosystems 22
Table 4: Major ecosystem literature streams, ecosystem types and differences in 26

focus
Table 5: Summary of the research strategy of this dissertation 53
Table 6: Journals with most published articles on entrepreneurial ecosystems 71

(n=431)
Table 7: Ten most cited research articles between 1995 and 2019 using 71
“entrepreneurial ecosystem” as search term on Web of Science (n=431)
Table 8: An overview of social capital dimensions present 76
Table 9: Results of PLS analysis 81
Table 10: Overview of case study findings, based on ecosystem factors and 85
knowledge ecosystem characteristics as strategic determinants of how
competition works
Table 11: Summary of research contributions 94
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CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE RESEARCH
1.1. Introduction to the Research Area
This Chapter introduces the research area of the dissertation and discusses its relevance to
industrial marketing. Firstly, the concept of “ecosystems” is introduced and defined, and the
relevance of the ecosystem concept to industrial marketing is highlighted. In addition, extant
perspectives on the dynamics of competition in ecosystems are provided to broadly sketch the
landscape and to further also contextualize how it relates to an industrial marketing context.
Secondly, the gaps in knowledge regarding ecosystems in current industrial marketing
literature are identified and discussed. Thirdly, an overview of the research scope is provided,
followed by the overarching problem statement of the research, which culminates in clearly
articulating the research problem which this dissertation sought to answer.
1.1.1 The Ecosystems Concept
All companies cease to exist sooner or later. In 1980, the average lifespan of an S&P 500 listed
company was 35 years (Anthony et al., 2018). By 2025 the lifespan of an average company is
projected to decrease to less than 15 years (Sarkar & Kotler, 2019). There are a number of
reasons why companies figuratively die, with one growing reason being that companies do not
understand the dynamics of the competition in their ecosystems (Sarkar & Kotler, 2019). In a
fiercely competitive business environment, the performance of firms is derived from something
much larger than the companies themselves: the success of their respective ecosystems (Iansiti
& Levien, 2004; Moore, 2003). It is hard to imagine that 25 years ago, Apple was regarded a
sinking ship. In 1996 Apple was on the brink of bankruptcy and its executives, as a final attempt
at a lifeline, made a pivotal choice to “bet the firm on a novel ecosystem” (Hannah &
Eisenhardt, 2018). This ecosystem consisted of a group of firms who collectively provided
components such as an MP3 player, flash memory, the rights to digital music, and the iTunes
store. Together, this offered a seamless music experience which captivated customers and kept
Apple afloat in the crucial years before the iPhone. The ecosystem also facilitated the
cooperative creation of value with complementors, while simultaneously allowing Apple to
competitively capture a share of the value that the ecosystem created (Hannah & Eisenhardt,
2018).
Ecosystems represent loose networks of suppliers, distributors, makers of related or

complementary products and services, technology providers, outsourcing firms, or institutions
and providers which affect or are affected by the creation and delivery of the firm’s own
offerings (Iansiti & Levien, 2004). The ecosystem may also include competitors and customers,
when their actions and feedback affect the development of the firm’s own products or processes
(Fuller et al., 2019). One’s ecosystem could even comprise entities like regulatory agencies and
media outlets which may have a less immediate, but just as powerful, effect on a firm’s business
(Birkinshaw, 2019; Iansiti & Levien, 2004). To understand one’s ecosystem entails an awareness
of changes that occur with customers, suppliers, communities, and competitors, and knowing
how to respond to these changes in order to survive (Sarkar & Kotler, 2019). Organizations thus
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need to anticipate, adapt and align to change (Day, 2020) – both internally, as well as how they
interact with their external context.
The use of an ecosystem metaphor to describe the nature of business is not new. Globally,
multinational companies like Toyota and Volkswagen have successfully been coordinating
large networks of distributors and suppliers for decades (Birkinshaw, 2019). What has,
however, changed, is that a substantial number of fast-growing companies are explicitly
positioning themselves as actors within ecosystems (Subramaniam, 2020), including Apple,
Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft, the four largest listed companies globally (Blakeley, 2021).
Interestingly, the word ecosystem appears more than ten times more frequently in annual
reports now than a decade ago (Fuller et al., 2019), and e-commerce retail giant, Alibaba,
referenced the term 160 times in their IPO listing prospectus in 2014 – one of the world’s
largest IPO listings to date (Kelly, 2015). Companies within ecosystems are posited to have
the advantage of speed to market, market responsiveness and heightened resilience in uncertain
times (Greeven & Yu, 2020), as the dynamics of the evolving relationships between the actors
necessitate flexibility and adaptation (Möller et al., 2020).
As macro-trends like digitization, globalization and technological disruptions change the

traditional business environment, industrial marketing scholars seek to understand whether
ecosystems represent a new way of competing – challenging the conventional thinking of how
businesses capture and create value (Birkinshaw, 2019). The mechanisms and relationships
that govern interaction between the interconnected actors within ecosystems require a different
perspective (Anggraeni et al., 2007). Autio and Thomas (2020) propose that, at its core, the
ecosystem concept is an evolution from the notion of value networks. Four particular
differences between ecosystems and value networks can be highlighted. Firstly, in contrast to
value networks, ecosystems entail participant heterogeneity spanning multiple industries,
transcending the public and private sectors (Thomas & Ritala, 2021). Secondly, the system-
level output of ecosystem value propositions is regarded more generative, as innovations can
be produced unprompted (Henfridsson & Bygstad, 2013). Thirdly, ecosystems represent the
combined assets and skills of an interdependent, co-specialized group of entities which
simultaneously create value for all that form part of the ecosystem (Eisenhardt & Galunic,
2000). Finally, ecosystems mostly comprise non-contractual mechanisms with a non-
hierarchical structure (Shipilov & Gawer, 2020; Thomas & Ritala, 2021), in contrast to value
networks where relationships are often structured through formalized contracts or collaboration
mechanisms (Shipilov & Gawer, 2020).
Driven by connectivity and new modes of collaboration (Kelly, 2015), ecosystems are thus
systems of complex and loosely interconnected networks, that focus on creating and capturing
value through the integrated efforts of all the members in its environment (Fuller et al., 2019).
Participation in the ecosystem enables individual entities to commercialize products, services,
processes or ideas which they would not have been able to do by relying on their individual
competencies only (Clarysse et al., 2014; Thomas & Autio, 2020). Greeven and Yu (2020)
assert that ecosystems are about understanding the market as networks of participants, while
Jacobides et al., (2018) suggest that ecosystems facilitate value creation through relationships
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and not through asset ownership, superior infrastructure, or physical goods. In turn, Birkinshaw
(2019) proposes that companies in an ecosystem grow the market by increasing the flow of
people and goods, in contrast to the traditional notion of each company capturing as much of
the existing market as possible to gain an advantage. Furthermore, Fuller et al. (2019) proffer
that ecosystems are engines of growth that drive organizational competitive advantage, which
heralds a shift toward dynamic, multi-firm interdependence that enables competitive and
economic advantage for all within the ecosystem. Similarly, Moore (2013) asserts that
ecosystems provide a nuanced lens on how competition is created and maintained.
To clarify the ecosystems concept, a clear definition is necessary, for if we do not define
something we cannot fully understand it and if we don’t understand it, we cannot hope to
manage it (Wittgenstein, 1953). The section to follow thus provides an overview of the various
definitions that have been offered in the literature and concludes with the definition used as
guideline in this dissertation.
1.1.2 Defining Ecosystems
The multidisciplinary nature of business, society and technology has paved the way for the
ecosystem literature to be pinned at the crossroads between a number of different disciplines
(Autio & Thomas, 2020). Aarikka-Stenroos and Ritala (2017) posit that it encompasses the
strategic management, marketing, technology, and sociology fields, while Autio and Thomas
(2020) approach it from the disciplinary perspectives of strategic management, marketing, and
information systems. Contextually-based definitions of ecosystems abound, creating
terminological and conceptual heterogeneity (Thomas & Autio, 2020). To align the various
definitions that have been put forward, Table 1 provides a summary of extant ecosystem
definitions, as found in the marketing and management literature specifically.
Based on the literature-identified definitions presented in Table 1, some conceptual

commonalities as to how ecosystems are defined emerge, namely ecosystems-as-structure,
ecosystem-based activity, and ecosystem-level output. Firstly, ecosystems-as-structure, echoes
an assertion suggested by Aarikka-Stenroos and Ritala (2017), Adner (2017), Fuller et al.
(2019), and Moore (2013), which proposes that ecosystems are configurations of co-evolving
associated actors who form an organizational structure. Secondly, ecosystem-based activity
highlights the complementarity, collaboration and interdependence of the activities between
these entities that form the organizational structure of ecosystems (Granstrand & Holgersson,
2020; Greeven & Yu, 2020; Jacobides et al., 2018). Thirdly, ecosystem-level output, defines
ecosystems as a structure through which the collective activity of all actors contributes to
generate a shared ecosystem output, e.g., creating a product, service, technology, platform, or
shared knowledge base (Hannah & Eisenhardt, 2018; Thomas & Autio, 2020; Tsujimoto et al.,
2018).
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Table 1: Ecosystem definitions
Definitions
Ecosystems-as-structure
“A co-evolutionary business system of actors, technologies, and institutions. Actors

include the end-users or customers and user communities, developers and research
organizations, competitors, and complementors throughout the entire value chain and
network, as well as institutional actors” (Aarikka-Stenroos & Ritala, 2017, p. 2)
“The alignment structure of the multilateral set of partners that need to interact in order for
a focal value proposition to materialize” (Adner, 2017, p. 40)
“Multi-entity, groups of companies not belonging to a single organization, involving
networks of shifting, semi-permanent relationships, linked by flows of data, services, and
money. The relationships combine aspects of competition and collaboration, often
involving complementarity between different products and capabilities (for instance,
smartphones and apps). Ecosystem players co-evolve as they redefine their capabilities
and relations to others over time” (Fuller et al., 2019, p. 3)
“A new form of organization…[one] that shows promise in achieving shared purposes,
sharing value among many contributors, and in bringing the benefits of technology to a
range of people, cultures and problems far beyond what earlier systems have achieved”
(Moore, 2013, p. 3)
Ecosystem-based activity
“The network of organizations ─ including suppliers, distributors, customers, competitors,

and government agencies, and so on ─ involved in the delivery of a specific product or
service through both competition and cooperation…[each] entity in the ecosystem affects
and is affected by the others, creating a constantly evolving relationship in which each
entity must be flexible and adaptable in order to survive as in a biological ecosystem”
(Greeven & Yu, 2020, p. 1)
“A set of actors with varying degrees of multilateral, non-generic complementarities that
are not fully hierarchically controlled” (Jacobides et al., 2018, p. 2264)
Ecosystem-level output
“Groups of firms that produce products or services that together comprise a coherent
solution” (Hannah & Eisenhardt, 2018, p. 3164)
“A community of hierarchically independent, yet interdependent heterogeneous
participants who collectively generate an ecosystem output” (Thomas & Autio, 2020, p.
30)
“A product/service system, an historically self-organized or managerially designed
multilayer social network consisting of actors that have different attributes, decision
principles and beliefs” (Tsujimoto et al., 2018, p. 55)
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Based on the three overarching commonalities between the various proposed definitions, this
dissertation mostly draws on the definitions proposed by Aarikka-Stenroos and Ritala (2017),
Adner (2017) and Thomas and Autio (2020) to define ecosystems as:
The alignment structure of a multilateral set of hierarchically independent, yet interdependent

and co-evolving actors, technologies, and institutions, that interact to collectively generate a
shared ecosystem output.
With a concise definition of ecosystems determined, the relevance of the ecosystems concept
to industrial marketing in particular is discussed next.
1.1.3 The Relevance of Ecosystems to Industrial Marketing
From a scholarly perspective, academe in the industrial marketing field, particularly from a
business network perspective, have steadily started to adopt the ecosystem concept in their
vocabulary over the past decade (Aarikka-Stenroos & Ritala, 2017; Akaka et al., 2013; Frow
et al., 2016; Möller & Halinen, 2017; Möller et al., 2020; Wieland et al., 2016; Wilkinson &
Young, 2013). As a way to describe the increased interdependence between networks of
customers, suppliers, buyers, and producers of complementary and competing services or
products (Adner, 2017; Autio & Thomas, 2020; Clarysse et al., 2014; Jacobides et al., 2018;
Kapoor, 2018; Kapoor & Lee, 2013; Vargo & Lusch, 2017), the interest denotes a “notable
shift in the conceptual focus of industrial marketing and management – from networks toward
ecosystems” (Aarikka-Stenroos & Ritala, 2017, p.23).
The conceptual shift in focus from networks to ecosystems is mainly driven by two factors.
First, it heralds a new way of coordinating multiple interdependent, diverse and co-evolving
entities with the shared goal of bringing a focal value proposition to fruition (Fuller et al., 2019;
Jacobides et al., 2018). Akaka et al. (2013, p. 8) assert that for industrial marketers, the
“ecosystems view emphasizes the integration of skills to develop new knowledge...to apply
resources in a more effective, efficient, and sustainable manner.” In addition, Hannah and
Eisenhardt (2018) contend that ecosystems and networks differ in the sense that networks are
composed of the ties among a set of firms that for instance, shape the flow of resources and
information in an industry, but doesn’t necessarily entail organizational interdependence. In
contrast, ecosystems revolve around an output and not a structure of ties, which also reflects
the interdependence among actors to deliver and secure the ecosystem’s overall performance
(Hannah & Eisenhardt, 2018).
Second, the adoption of an ecosystem approach is driven by necessity, as the accelerated

change of the business environment is increasingly prompting organizations to realign their
structures (Teece, 2014) and create novel capabilities (Narayanan et al., 2009) to keep pace
with changes and achieve or maintain competitive advantage (Guerrero et al., 2019). In a
progressively interconnected world, dramatic shifts in technology have changed the way in
which products and services are designed, produced, distributed, evaluated and consumed
(Kumar et al., 2015). Kumar et al. (2015, p.470) propose that “a web of entities rather than
5
predominantly a single firm coordinates a set of activities that delivers utility to mutually
connected consumers.” In addition, there is a growing consensus among scholars that
ecosystem thinking demands a different theoretical and empirical approach from what has
previously been employed in relationship and network studies (Aarikka-Stenroos & Ritala,
2017; Anggraeni et al., 2007; Greeven & Yu, 2020). As such, more research is warranted better
to understand how organizations who form part of these ecosystems are organized for
marketing agility, which has been indicated as a research priority by the Marketing Science
Institute for 2020-2022.
Figure 1: Organizational structure of ecosystems
Source: Adopted from Fuller et al. (2019)
From an organizational structure perspective, ecosystems can be pegged as sitting between two
extremes along a spectrum of market fluidity. Figure 1 provides an illustrative representation,
developed by Fuller et al. (2019), which depicts different organizational structures and
relationships that firms can have between their products and the eventual consumer. On the
one end, we find vertically integrated companies or static supply chains, while on the other
end, we find open, competitive markets, where customers can combine products according to
their changing patterns of need (Fuller et al., 2019). Making use of an ecosystems approach
thus necessitates a shift away from a traditional, static, company-centric strategic approach.
Fueled by an increased interest in the phenomenon, a number of journals in the field of
marketing have issued calls for papers on ecosystems for the period 2020-2021, ranging in
focus from innovation ecosystems (Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Business
Research, Journal of Cleaner Production), knowledge ecosystems (International Business
Review), entrepreneurial ecosystems (Review of Managerial Science), to platform ecosystems
(European Journal of Marketing).
As can be observed from the various contexts in which the ecosystem term is conceptually
being applied, Thomas and Autio (2020) contend that this conceptual proliferation hinders a
6
deepened understanding of the phenomenon and the potential value it can add to theory and
practice. In addition, Aarikka-Stenroos and Ritala (2017), and Thomas and Autio (2020)
highlight that the dynamics of competition within these ecosystems, particularly from an
industrial marketing perspective, seems to be an unexplored area. Some scholars view the rise
of the ecosystem concept as an opportunity for creating new competitive advantage (Jacobides
et al., 2018; Kelly, 2015), while others contend that ecosystems thinking is changing the rules
of competitive strategy (Birkinshaw, 2019; Greeven & Yu, 2020; Jacobides, 2019; Thomas &
Autio, 2020). The dynamics of competitive strategies in these different ecosystems is thus still
uncharted territory in industrial marketing literature.
Several areas relating to the dynamics of competitive strategy within ecosystems have been
earmarked for further inquiry. First, despite conceptual proliferation, there is consensus that
each ecosystem type collectively contributes to generate a common ecosystem output which
ensures superior enterprise performance and longevity (Thomas & Autio, 2020). In the
industrial marketing literature, performance has been closely linked to the development of
inimitable capabilities and sustained competitive advantage (Moorman & Day, 2016). The
importance of understanding how competitive advantage is achieved in ecosystems has been
addressed by some in industrial marketing literature (Aarikka-Stenroos & Ritala, 2017;
Rohrbeck et al., 2009), yet, conceptual and empirical enquiry to contribute to our theoretical
understanding of the phenomena is still in short supply (Möller & Halinen, 2017). Second,
although we have a good understanding of the organizational interconnectedness of networks
within ecosystems (Zahra & Nambisan, 2012), little is known about the dynamic capabilities
of the actors within, and how that impact the ecosystems’ competitiveness (Jacobides et al.,
2018). Third, the collaborative, cooperative and competitive nature of relationships within
ecosystems have been established (Thomas & Autio, 2020); however, a deeper understanding
of how these relational resources impact the competitiveness of the ecosystem is still lacking
(Kapoor & Lee, 2013). Last, there is agreement in the strategic management literature that the
shared goal of entities within ecosystems is the creation and capturing of value (Moore, 1993).
Knowledge regarding what the respective strategic drivers of competitiveness in ecosystems
from an industrial marketing perspective would be, is, however, not yet clear.
To further probe the relevance of ecosystem competitiveness to industrial marketing, the

section to follow provides a more in-depth explanation of the dynamics of competition and
how this plays out in the ecosystems context from an industrial marketing perspective.
1.1.4. Why Ecosystem Competitiveness Matters to Industrial Marketing
The dynamics of competition inherent within ecosystems has been explicitly articulated since
the term’s inception into the business management literature. Thirty years ago, Rothschild
(1990, p. xi), argued that a “capitalist economy can best be comprehended as a living
ecosystem. Key phenomena observed in nature – competition, specialization, cooperation,
exploitation, learning, growth, and several others – are also central to business life.” James F
Moore, generally regarded as the pioneer of the ecosystem concept in contemporary business,
wrote in his seminal 1993 Harvard Business Review article, “Predators and Prey: A New
7
Ecology of Competition”, that “it’s competition among business ecosystems, not individual
companies, that’s largely fueling today’s industrial transformation. Managers can’t afford to
ignore the birth of new ecosystems or the competition among those that already exist” (p.76).
It is thus necessary to acknowledge that organizations form part of a bigger ecosystem
(Peltoniemi, 2004). In his follow-up book, “The Death of Competition”, Moore (1996) further
directly refers to the end of traditional competition between individual products and services,
inferring that competition instead plays out between ecosystems spanning multiple
traditionally defined product markets (Cennamo, 2019).
Thomas, Sharapov and Autio (2018) argue that organizations seldom operate in perfectly
competitive markets that are characterized by isolated transactions between toe-to-toe
competing firms, producing substitutable products. Instead, it operates within hyper-networked
structures that consists of co-specialized, complementary organizations that co-create value
(Jacobides et al., 2018). All actors impact the competitiveness of the ecosystem in the business
environment. Just like a species can flourish when all the elements are in balance and favorably
contribute to the health of the ecosystem, companies grow and excel when the dynamics of the
ecosystem contribute to its competitive advantage. Conversely, a species can become extinct
when access to key elements in its ecosystem are withdrawn, just like firms can cease to exist
if some elements in its ecosystem change unfavorably. Iansiti and Levien (2004, p.69) stress
the “shared fate” of the ecosystem community as a whole, as the performance of individual
members is tied to the overall performance of the ecosystem.
Teece (2007) contends that the ecosystem should monitor and react to its environment,
evaluating what shifts are occurring and how it affects its dynamic capabilities and thus, its
ability to build sustainable competitive advantage (Kotler & Sarkar, 2019). As the nature of
competition shifts to an organization’s capacity and ability to build relationships within an agile
ecosystem, the resources and capabilities of the actors in the ecosystems are of equal
importance (Adner, 2017; Zahra & Nambisan, 2012). Competition is thus not necessarily only
approached from an external perspective where competitors are those vying for a similar
customer base or market anymore. An ecosystems approach implies that competitiveness is
dynamic and entails an interorganizational, interdependent perspective to assess potential
opportunities for growth and commercialization from within the ecosystem, its resources and
capabilities (Pellikka & Ali-Vehmas, 2016).
Two distinct, yet interacting levels of competition, are implied: competition within the
ecosystem and competition across ecosystems. Competition within ecosystems relates to the
assurance of position, the security of activities and roles, and the distribution and capturing of
value in the ecosystem (Adner, 2017). Competition across the ecosystem refers to the
“collective advantages in creating and capturing value relative to rival constellations of actors”
(Adner, 2017, p.49). Tensions can arise if there is increased competitiveness between partners.
Adner (2017, p.49) argues that this serves “to enhance the value creation advantage of the
ecosystem” which contributes to certain actors “maintaining a (leadership) position in the face
of competitive partners, the importance of whose contribution is increasing, and who may
desire to change roles or revenue capture” (Adner, 2017, p.49). At the core of this tension is
8
the search for alignment in order to achieve competitive advantage. Employing traditional
strategies that rely on the value, rarity, and inimitability of resources is exchanged for
multilateral partnerships and stronger relationships, as sustainable advantage focuses as much
on maintaining relationships as it does on keeping competitors at bay (Adner, 2017; Jacobides
et al., 2018).
These competitive dynamics thus play a central role in better understanding the strategic
imperatives inherent in ecosystems. Four overarching competitive considerations of
ecosystems are identified and proposed to have an impact on the evolving nature of strategic
competitiveness within industrial marketing.
1.1.4.1. Interorganizational Collaboration
First, interorganizational collaboration explicitly highlights the interdependency among

partners in ecosystems. It underscores the coordination and dynamics of activities, whether
cooperatively, collaboratively or competitively, to both create and capture value within these
exchange networks (Adner & Kapoor, 2010). This represents a move away from defining
competition as the ability to establish superiority over other external competitors, to evolve
towards investing in connections, including cooperative and competitive relationships, in order
to build the overall competitiveness of the ecosystem (Aarikka-Stenroos & Ritala, 2017).
1.1.4.2. Dependency on Resources and Capabilities Outside of Direct Control

of One Single Organization
Second, the dependency on resources and capabilities outside of the direct control of any one
particular entity in an ecosystem approach, builds on the necessity for reliance on
interorganizational and interdependent relationships (Pellikka & Ali-Vehmas, 2016). It further
highlights a challenge to extant perspectives of competitive advantage, as it theorizes that
strategic competitiveness moves away from a central foci, hub or executive decision-making
team, to the ecosystem as a whole (Jacobides et al., 2018). An industry-specific positioning
approach to building competitive advantage, traditionally built on product differentiation and
asset ownership, thus becomes less central to gain competitive advantage (Fuller et al., 2019).
Competitiveness in this context is thus evolving towards interdependent ‘networks of
networks’, where influence, complementarity and super-modularity have a bigger impact on
the cumulative network effects of the entire ecosystem than full ownership or control (Fuller
et al., 2019; Jacobides et al., 2018).
1.1.4.3. Dynamic Connections
Third, competitiveness is established through dynamic connections, where the larger the
ecosystem, the greater the ability to interact with potential complementary actors (Möller et al.,
2020). The growth of the ecosystem thus supports a higher level of interaction (Satell, 2019).
This indicates a move away from a static approach to competitiveness, where high barriers to
entry and maximization of bargaining power within the value chain facilitated advantage
9
(Tsujimoto et al., 2018). Within the ecosystem context, these tactics may weaken connections
with other existing and potential actors in the ecosystem (Fuller et al., 2019). Sustainable
competitiveness is rather sought through an evolving approach towards a change in the
configuration of actors within an ecosystem, for the purpose of establishing multilateral,
dynamic relationships and alignment strategies, both vertical and horizontal, for sustainable
competitiveness (Adner, 2017; Tsujimoto et al., 2018).
1.1.4.4. Competing Beyond Traditional Industry Boundaries
Fourth and finally, from a competitive perspective, success within ecosystems spans beyond
traditional industry boundaries and is determined by innovating or creating value for other
actors in the ecosystem as much as innovating for one’s own interest, regardless the industry
or sector (Jacobides, 2019). This suggests a move away from considering competitors as those
who target and compete for the same or similar customers, markets or industries only, to an
evolving perspective towards competing across multiple industries which transcend the
traditional boundaries between business, public and private sectors (Fuller et al., 2019; Thomas
& Autio, 2020).
Competition within ecosystems is, however, not a “zero-sum game” (Thomas & Autio, 2020,
p.27). The competitive focus is on trying to meet as many customers’ needs as possible
(Cennamo & Santalo, 2013). The competitive behaviours within ecosystems are thus different
(Cennamo, 2019). Competitive behaviour scenarios which have been researched include the
subsidization of one customer segment to support another (Rochet & Tirole, 2003); varied
degrees of participant openness to the ecosystem (Boudreau, 2010); different levels of
exclusivity (Cennamo & Santalo, 2013); as well as strategic tactics like platform envelopment
(Eisenmann, et al., 2011). With the exception of Hannah and Eisenhardt (2018), research into
competition among interdependent ecosystems is scant. Substantive research has been
conducted to understand the unique characteristics of ecosystems and how they collaboratively
facilitate value creation for ecosystem-level outputs (Adner, 2017; Autio & Thomas, 2020;
Clarysse et al., 2014). Surprisingly little is, however, known about the respective and
comparative competitive strategies or theories that could be employed to assess these strategies
within industrial marketing.
To further probe these competitive considerations, the section to follow focuses on specific
areas of inquiry within the ecosystem literature to identify research gaps. Drawing on both the
extant broader business and strategic management literature, as well as more specifically the
marketing and industrial marketing literature in particular, ecosystems and the dynamics of
competition within ecosystems are discussed in the section to follow. In doing so, pertinent
research gaps are identified and presented.
1.2. Research Gap Identification
Ecosystems are considered a new way of depicting the competitive environment of business
(Jacobides et al., 2018; Jacobides, 2019; Kotler & Sarkar, 2019). Having emerged from the
10
business and strategic management fields, the ecosystem concept has received substantive
scholarly attention in these fields. From an industrial marketing perspective, the earliest article
that refers to the ecosystem concept in the industrial marketing literature, is an article by
Bengtsson and Kock (1999), titled “Cooperation and competition in relationships between
competitors in business networks”, which was published in the Journal of Business &
Industrial Marketing. The industrial marketing literature has seen a rapid increase in ecosystem
literature from 2015 onwards, which included a special issue with a research emphasis on
ecosystems in the Journal of Business Research in 2016. Up until 2016, most of the studies in
the industrial marketing field conceptualized the ecosystem concept metaphorically, and
loosely defined it as a complex and broad system with many diverse actors (Aarikka-Stenroos
& Ritala, 2017).
Through the emergent service ecosystem stream, the authors Vargo and Lusch strongly pushed
to integrate service-dominant logic and the ecosystem analogy with industrial marketing
research (e.g., Lusch et al., 2016, Vargo & Lusch, 2016; Vargo et al., 2015). Important to also
note is that the ecosystem concept was often used in parallel with dynamic capabilities (Teece,
2007) to sketch the dynamic nature of the broader market environment. As a framework from
which to identify new and emerging topics, Aarikka-Stenroos and Ritala (2017) developed
thematic categorizations based on industrial marketing research articles that used an ecosystem
approach. Table 2 provides an overview of their thematic categorization, using selected articles
as reference.
Table 2: Thematic organization of selected industrial marketing research articles employing

an ecosystem approach
Research themes The role of ecosystems in the Examples of the role of ecosystems
linked to ecosystems field of study in the focal research and
references
Markets and An ecosystem is a way in which • The ecosystem relates to a layer of

industries a market is structured; it is a “institutional systems and their
dynamically evolving structure. dynamics (e.g., distribution channels
and networked ecosystems)”
(Möller, 2013, p.324).
• The market ecosystem has balance
and symmetry, but this can be
disrupted via market shaping and
scripting as an actor introduces new
ideas or new business model
elements to which “the market
ecosystem” responds by seeking to
recover and create a stasis once more
(Storbacka & Nenonen, 2011).
• An ecosystem enables “discovering
opportunities” and “market learning”
(Storbacka & Nenonen, 2015).
11
• Knowledge acquisition from the
Firms learn, discover, and internal and external actors of a
acquire information from the value co-creation
“market,” that is, the ecosystem via social media and a
“ecosystem.” market orientation strategy builds a
firm's competitive advantage
(Nguyen et al. 2015).
• “Market sensing” is the ability of a
firm to “anticipate [the] future
The market orientation implies evolution of markets and detect
that “the whole ecosystem” is a emerging opportunities based on
source of information. information collected from its
business ecosystem” (Mu, 2015,
p.154).
Value co-creation Value is co-created in a systemic • Multiple stakeholders or actors

way by diverse actors. contribute to value co-creation in the
ecosystem via their divergent
resources and resource integration
practices (Ekman et al., 2016; Frow
et al., 2016; Pera et al., 2016;
Singaraju et al., 2016; Storbacka et
al., 2016).
• There is a systemic perspective on
value co-creation rather than isolated
investigations on one level
(Meynhardt et al., 2016).
Value chains and An ecosystem is an evolution of • Ecosystems are hub-, firm-, or

value networks the value network: the firm product-centric value chains or
chooses and operates a network networks with vertical, horizontal,
of collaborating actors who help and diagonal relationships (Søilen et
provide an offering. al., 2012).
• A firm “chooses an ecosystem” that
comes with both opportunities and
risks and either enables or challenges
survival (Töytäri et al., 2015).
• An ecosystem is related to value
chain transformations (Lampel &
Germain, 2016)
Business models Business models are embedded • Business models differ in terms of
in an ecosystem context. how firms relate to the surrounding
ecosystem, that is, other players
(Benson-Rea et al.,2013).
• Firms must constantly develop their
Firms' business models and business models, taking into account
ecosystems co-evolve. the co-evolution of the business
model and ecosystem; dynamics are
emphasized (Muzellec et al., 2015).
12
• Competition, collaboration, and co-
opetition occur on the ecosystem
Competition and collaboration level, and business models can be
occur on an ecosystem level. designed to create as well as
appropriate value in this context
(Ritala et al., 2014).
Innovation and R&D Ecosystem actors are • Interpreters, for example designers,
contributors to innovation. who are outside of or distant from
the focal ecosystem can question
conventions and thus trigger
innovation and change (Verganti &
Öberg, 2013).
• Knowledge from business
ecosystems is relevant to open
innovation processes and
R&D (Lind et al., 2012).
• The ecosystem approach puts
forward new approaches such as
crowdsourcing (e.g., Simula &
New tools and methods are Ahola, 2014) and various other tools
needed to enable ecosystem and methods to enable dispersed
actors to contribute. actors' contributions (Van
Bockhaven et al., 2015).
• Market innovation requires the
institutionalization of new practices
and the emergence of common
templates reflecting shared problems
Market innovations are the result and solutions. Problems and
of co-creation and inconsistencies in an ecosystem
institutionalization by ecosystem trigger the emergence of new
actors. solutions that create change, but the
institutions in the ecosystem can also
help in achieving and realizing
institutional change (Kjellberg et al.,
2015).
• Innovation is a process that unfolds
through changes in the institutional
arrangements that govern resource
integration practices in ecosystems
(Koskela-Huotari et al., 2016)
• Innovation can be considered a
social process in the ecosystem “by a
group of actors in which a company's
borders and the distinction between
the internal and external disappear,”
and thus, innovation is co-created by
all actors through a set of practices
(including symbolic, linguistic, and
13
material practices) and resource
integration (Mele & Russo-Spena,
2015, p.43).
• The main external innovation
barrier for radical innovation is a
lack of support from an ecosystem
(Sandberg & Aarikka-Stenroos,
2014).
Radical innovation requires a • In cases of radical innovation,
(business) ecosystem, though ecosystems must be created (Yami &
this is often absent. Nemeh, 2014) or modified (Aarikka-
Stenroos & Lehtimäki, 2014).
Start-ups and A new business requires support • The ecosystems around innovative
entrepreneurship from multiple actors and start-ups (Baraldi et al., 2014;
institutions. Boehm & Hogan, 2013; Purchase et
al., 2014), universities (Jahanmir,
2016; Janeiro et al., 2013), and
investors (Lutz et al., 2013) are
studied as innovation ecosystems.
Ecosystems, as industry clusters, • Clusters created by economic
support entrepreneurship. policies are less prone to innovation
than the spontaneous ecosystems that
emerge from private entrepreneurial
initiatives (Letaifa & Rabeau, 2013).
Branding and The social processes that occur • Brand and goodwill are earned in
legitimacy between multiple stakeholders in ecosystems that include multiple
an ecosystem are meaningful. stakeholders ─ firms must re-
legitimize their businesses within
their ecosystems (Sheth & Sinha,
2015).
• Multiple stakeholders, even those
that are distant, opposing, and at the
periphery of an ecosystem, can
contribute to the co-creation of a
brand (online and offline) via their
values, cultural complementarities,
and valuable adjustments at the core
of the ecosystem (Gyrd-Jones &
Kornum, 2013).
• Multiple actors realize the
transition occurring in the service
ecosystem (Letaifa et al., 2016).
Source: Adopted from Aarikka-Stenroos and Ritala (2017)
As per Table 2, seven established and nascent themes in the area of industrial marketing
emerge. These themes include overarching topics that relate to markets and industries, the co-
14
creation of value through a diverse and interacting set of actors, the collaborative efforts of the
value chain, the creation and capturing of value through business models within an ecosystem
context, the generation of an innovative output through innovation and R&D developments in
an ecosystem, the instantiation of entrepreneurial ventures and start-ups through support within
an ecosystem, and finally branding and legitimacy, which emphasize end-user brand
engagement which leads to an ecosystem built around a brand. Besides the articles by Nguyen
et al. (2015) and Ritala et al. (2014), none of these articles explicitly address how competitive
advantage emerges or is achieved through an ecosystems approach.
To further probe the literature for articles with a focus on competitive advantage and
ecosystems, a Web of Science database search on the topic of ecosystems and competitiveness
was run. The search yielded 368 research articles in the general field of business management
between the years 2000 and 07 July 2020. Of the research articles identified, the most cited
article, with 634 citations, was an article by Vargo and Lusch (2016), titled “Institutions and
axioms: An extension and update of service-dominant logic”, published in the Journal of the
Academy of Marketing Science. Assessing the rest of the research articles, it is clear that
research on ecosystems and competitiveness in the marketing field in particular, is not
extensive, with 19 articles that have been published in marketing and marketing-related
journals on the focal topic since 2000.
On closer inspection, six articles have reviewed ecosystems and competitiveness from a
services marketing perspective over the last five years (Cheng et al., 2018; Guillemot & Privat,
2019; Minkiewicz et al., 2016; O’Connor & Cooke, 2020; Parris et al., 2016; Vargo & Lusch,
2016). From an industrial marketing perspective, barring one recent article by Bacon et al.
(2020) which explores the conditions for knowledge transfer success, examining how
knowledge transfer differs in coopetitive versus non-competitive ecosystem partnerships in the
Journal of Business Research, no research articles on ecosystems and competitiveness have
been published in industrial marketing journals. To ensure a comprehensive overview of the
topic and potential research gaps in the area of ecosystems and competitiveness, additional
articles from the fields of business, management, and strategy were also included to provide
broader reach and topical clarity. The broader assessment of the literature yielded three
particular areas for future research, which is discussed in more depth in the following section:
Gap 1: Clarity regarding the ecosystem metaphor
In assessing business ecosystems as a perspective for studying the relations between firms and
their business networks, Anggraeni et al. (2007) suggested further development of the
ecosystem concept from a research perspective, to gain better insight into the roles and
strategies of companies regarding the nature of competitive relationships between them. Oh et
al. (2016) conducted a critical examination of innovation ecosystems, and proposed that more
clarity is needed regarding the differences between different ecosystems. More recently
Thomas and Autio (2020) developed an organizing typology of ecosystems and asserted that
more empirical research is needed to gauge how different ecosystems compete.
15
To mature the ecosystem metaphor as a research concept and perspective for studying the
relationships between firms, their networks, and actors in industrial marketing, more clarity
and review of the concept in general is thus needed (Aarikaa-Stenroos & Ritala, 2017;
Anggraeni et al., 2007). A concise representation of conceptual differences, terminological
applications and distinctions between different ecosystems, would serve better to highlight its
value for industrial marketing and management (Oh et al., 2016). Clarity regarding the
ecosystem metaphor would serve to gain better insight into how different ecosystems compete,
as well as the nature of the competitive relationships between the different ecosystem types
(Thomas & Autio, 2020).
Gap 2: Theories to assess the dynamics of competitive advantage within and across
ecosystems
Adner (2017) assessed the ecosystem structure as an actionable construct for strategy, and
suggested that the consolidation of competitive dynamics across multiple levels of interaction
within ecosystems is an area not yet explored in the literature. Similarly, Jacobides et al. (2018)
present a theory of ecosystems and propose that firms gain from others participating in an
ecosystem, but cannot fully control them. The authors suggest that future research should
investigate what that implies for the way in which they attain advantage and how frameworks
like the resource-based view (RBV) and dynamic capabilities would be valuable for firms in
this dynamic context (Jacobides et al., 2018). Looking at social exchanges, networks and
relationships, Theodoraki et al. (2018) employed a social capital approach to the development
of sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems, and proposed that research is needed to explain how
the dimensions implicit in social networks impact the competitive advantage within
ecosystems.
As such, it is posited that once conceptual clarity is gained, empirical research can be conducted
to better explain and explore relationships between constructs within ecosystems. This,
however, necessitates suitable theoretical frameworks (Adner, 2017; Autio & Thomas, 2020;
Jacobides et al., 2018). The second identified gap thus relates to the exploration of appropriate
theories to assess the dynamics of competition and competitive advantage of ecosystems.
Different theoretical perspectives have been proposed, mostly focusing on traditional
theoretical approaches customarily used to assess competition. These suggested theoretical
approaches include the resource-based view of the firm theory (Barney, 1991; Penrose, 1959;
Wernerfelt, 1984), dynamic capabilities (Teece et al. 1997), and network theory research (Burt,
2001; Lin, 2008), which centers on the dynamics of structural, relational and cognitive
dimensions of relationships within ecosystems, for example social capital (Adner, 2017;
Anggraeni et al., 2007; Autio & Thomas, 2020).
Gap 3: Empirical research regarding strategies for competitiveness in ecosystems
In their study of the management of innovation ecosystems to create and capture value in ICT
industries, Pellikka and Ali-Vehmas (2016) assert that more empirical research is necessary,
both qualitative and quantitative, to assess what strategies are being employed across different
16
ecosystem types. Similarly, Aarikka-Stenroos and Ritala (2017) propose that research and data
collection methods, with which to understand ecosystem-based business and innovation
activities and their management, should be developed. More empirical research with carefully
planned research designs in various contexts is needed to generate a deeper understanding of
the dynamics and co-evolution, as well as the open and evolving boundaries, of ecosystem
entities and the competitive advantage inherent in each of them (Aarikka-Stenroos & Ritala,
2017). Bacon et al. (2020) conducted a comparative analysis of knowledge transfer
configurations to assess coopetition in innovation ecosystems, and suggest that more analyses
are required regarding the conditions for competitive advantage within ecosystems. Finally,
Granstrand and Holgersson (2020) carried out a conceptual review of innovation ecosystems,
and propose that more empirical research is necessary to assess the strategic drivers of
competitiveness in other ecosystems.
Thus, to assess the implications of the emerging ecosystems approach and the way in which it
reflects in industrial marketing, more empirical research is necessary to assess strategy
formulation for competitiveness within and across ecosystems (Bacon et al., 2020; Granstrand
& Holgersson, 2020; Pellikka & Ali-Vehmas, 2016). Empirical analysis, both qualitative and
quantitative, would serve to generate a more holistic understanding of the drivers, factors and
conditions for competition and competitive advantage from an ecosystem perspective
(Aarikka-Stenroos & Ritala, 2017; Thomas & Autio, 2020). Figure 2 illustrates these three
gaps in the current literature, of which the one gap builds on the other. In other words,
addressing the first gap will have implications on the second, which will similarly also impact
the third research gap.
Figure 2: Three identified research gaps in the ecosystem literature
17
An ecosystems approach thus heralds a shift in the business environment (Kotler & Sarkar,
2019), with industry evolving from a distinct group of similar contenders, competing to
produce common end-products in a vertically integrated manner, to companies co-evolving in
non-permanent clusters of semi-connected, non-hierarchical relationships that span the
boundaries of traditional industry (Iansiti & Levien, 2004). Relying on assumptions and
traditional ‘plan and execute’ strategies from the classical perspective of the business
environment, would thus not position one in the best possible position to capitalize on
opportunities to create and capture value (Kapoor, 2018; Satell, 2019), which remains the
cornerstone of competitive advantage (Porter, 1985).
Instead, ecosystems’ competitive considerations and its implications for industrial marketing,
require responsiveness to an ever-changing market environment (McColl-Kennedy et al.,
2020). Competitive strategies would need to incorporate collaboration and cooperation with
others (McColl-Kennedy et al., 2020), including competitors, a reliance on the resources and
capabilities of those that you are collaborating and cooperating with (Quero Gervilla et al.,
2020), and alignment in activities to ensure that strategic decisions lead to beneficial outcomes
for all in the ecosystem (Hannah & Eisenhardt, 2018). Central to this strategic quandary would
be to explore how competitive advantage is achieved through an ecosystems approach in
industrial marketing.
1.3. Research Scope
The scope of the research relates to the extent to which this dissertation will explore the
research area with this study, and specifies the parameters within which the study will be
operating. Consolidating the competitive dynamics across multiple levels of interaction, using
multiple approaches to measure a number of constructs from an ecosystem perspective, would
be an arduous task for any doctoral dissertation. In addition, the three identified research gaps
extend across various disciplines and across a number of different types of ecosystems. As
such, a full exploration of all areas would extend beyond the scope of this dissertation and a
narrowing of focus for the purposes of this study is necessary. Three particular aspects across
and within specific ecosystems, pertinent to industrial marketing, are focused on.
First, the proliferation of the ecosystem concept across different disciplines and fields of study
warrants a thorough review of the literature to seek conceptual clarity. This would serve to
identify specific types of ecosystems and their characteristics. Second, building on the types of
ecosystems identified, a focused inquiry on competition and how it relates to competitive
advantage, both within and across specific ecosystems, is warranted. Third, specific theoretical
frameworks and strategies that relate to attaining advantage through resources, dynamic
capabilities and social networks, need to be employed for empirical analysis. The overarching
research problem and accompanying problem statement are introduced next.
18
1.4. Research Problem
The preceding sections have established that little is known about the achievement of
competitive advantage through the emerging ecosystems approach within industrial marketing.
The crux of the research problem that this dissertation thus seeks to answer is as follows:
Problem Statement:
How is competitive advantage achieved through an ecosystems approach in industrial
marketing?
The nature of ecosystems, competitive considerations, as well as research gaps identified, lead
to a number of potential avenues for further assessment. To provide clarity in terms of the
research direction to take, two key issues need to be addressed first:
1. The first issue is the challenge of conceptual heterogeneity of the ecosystem term, an
issue frequently highlighted in the literature (Adner, 2017; Jacobides et al., 2018;
Shipilov & Gawer, 2020, Thomas & Autio, 2020).
2. The second issue, closely linked to the conceptual heterogeneity, is the proliferated use
of the concept to depict different types of ecosystems (Adner, 2017; Jacobides et al.,
2018; Thomas & Autio, 2020).
Clarity regarding these two key issues would serve to better delineate the particular research
questions to address the overarching research problem of how competitive advantage is
achieved through an ecosystems approach in industrial marketing. To address these two issues,
a thorough literature review is necessary to assess the origins of the ecosystems concept, as
well as its use and typological application in the literature. These respective areas are elaborated
on in the literature review chapter to follow, starting with the evolution and development of the
ecosystem concept, as well as its characteristics. An assessment of the various literature-
proposed ecosystem types is also presented.
1.5. Chapter Summary
Chapter 1 served to introduce the research area of the dissertation and discuss its relevance to
industrial marketing. The ecosystems concept was first introduced, after which the concept was
defined, and its relevance to industrial marketing discussed. The pertinence of the ecosystems
concept to competitiveness in an industrial marketing context was also further considered. It is
argued that ecosystems are strategic vehicles for growth and innovation, that drive competitive
advantage in industrial marketing and provide a nuanced lens on how competition is created,
maintained and advantage achieved. Extant perspectives on the dynamics of competition in
ecosystems were provided to broadly sketch the landscape. The gaps in industrial marketing
literature and knowledge regarding ecosystems were identified and discussed – both from a
broader business management perspective, as well as specifically within the industrial
marketing stream. The scope of the research was presented, followed by the overarching
problem statement and research problem, which this dissertation seeks to answer.
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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
In this Chapter, the extant ecosystem literature is reviewed to track its evolution and
development. Emphasis is placed on the conceptualization of the ecosystem construct in the
management and marketing literature, which leads to a review of ecosystem-linked research
themes in industrial marketing literature specifically. This is followed by a discussion of the
characteristics of ecosystems in more detail, which serves as the basis for a consolidated
typology of the different types of ecosystems, including the respective ecosystems pertinent to
this doctoral dissertation. This is followed by a discussion of the literature-identified
importance of studying the competitive advantage of ecosystems from an industrial marketing
viewpoint. The Chapter then provides an overview of the theoretical perspectives of
competitive advantage, focusing in particular on the network and social capital theories, as well
as RBV theory and dynamic capabilities framework. The development of the research
questions is then discussed, together with an introduction to the four accompanying papers that
address each respective research question.
2.1. The Evolution and Development of the Ecosystem Concept
Ecosystems in the natural world are a familiar concept to most. Originally invented by the
British botanist Arthur Tansley in 1935, the word was used as a framework to describe the
interaction between contained communities of living organisms and the elements in their
localized environment (Golley, 1993). Tansley contended that as the organisms in an
ecosystem continuously coevolve to adapt to external changes and disruptions, they influence
each other and their terrain through sharing, competing, creating and collaborating for
resources in order to survive (Kelly, 2015). In 1986, the sociologist Amos Hawley introduced
the ecosystem term into social science, referring to an ecosystem as an “arrangement of mutual
dependencies in a population by which the whole operates as a unit and thereby maintains a
viable environmental relationship” (Hawley, 1986, p. 26). A few years later the business
strategist James F. Moore noticed growing parallels with the world of commerce and applied
the ecosystem concept to an increasingly dynamic and interconnected business environment,
in his seminal 1993 Harvard Business Review article. Moore (1993, pp. 75-76) proposed that:
“successful businesses are those that evolve rapidly and effectively. Yet innovative
businesses can’t evolve in a vacuum. They must attract resources of all sorts, drawing
in capital, partners, suppliers, and customers to create cooperative networks... I
suggest that a company be viewed not as a member of a single industry but as part of a
business ecosystem that crosses a variety of industries. In a business ecosystem,
companies co-evolve capabilities around a new innovation: They work cooperatively
and competitively to support new products, satisfy customer needs, and eventually
incorporate the next round of innovations.”
Although initially slow to gain momentum, interest in the phenomenon has grown rapidly in
recent years (Kelly, 2015). According to Google Scholar, Moore’s 1993 article had
accumulated 60 citations by the year 2000, and another 462 citations were added between 2001
20
and 2010. Over the last decade, since 2011, the article has, however, been cited 2814 times,
with 1942 of these citations occurring between 2016 and July 2020. The intensified scholarly
interest in ecosystems generally revolves around increased interest to understand the
cooperative and competitive interaction between a group of firms that depend on each other’s
activities for shared positive outcomes (Jacobides et al., 2018). As such, the ecosystem
approach has received a lot of attention in disciplines such as strategic management (Adner,
2017; Ansari et al., 2016; Autio & Thomas, 2020; Dattée et al., 2017; Thomas & Autio, 2020),
innovation and technology management (Clarysse et al., 2014; Gawer & Cusumano, 2014;
Ritala et al., 2013), and more recently, industrial marketing and management literature
(Aarikka-Stenroos & Ritala, 2017; Möller, 2013; Möller et al., 2020; Vargo et al., 2015;
Wilkinson & Young, 2013).
Over the past decade, the ecosystem concept has been given many different labels and monikers
to capture the essence of the approach in the industrial marketing and management literature.
Conceptualizations include the ‘innovation ecosystem’ (Ritala et al., 2014), ‘platform
ecosystem’ (Perks et al., 2017), and ‘service ecosystem’ (Vargo et al., 2015). In addition,
scholars have emphasized different aspects of an ecosystem, as determined by the unit of
analysis. Topics range from marketing and systemic value creation (Vargo et al., 2015),
managerial motives and resources for value co-creation (Pera et al., 2016), to co-creation
practices for health care ecosystems (Frow et al., 2016). Despite the widespread interest, some
contend the term has been conceptually and semantically overstretched in its application to
varying contexts (Aarikka-Stenroos & Ritala, 2017; Autio & Thomas, 2020; Fuller et al.,
2019).
Thomas and Autio (2020, p.2) argue that “despite extant proliferation, the concept nevertheless
describes collectives that are distinctive in that they uniquely combine participant
heterogeneity, coherence of ecosystem output, participant interdependence, and non-
hierarchical governance.” Considering the conceptual heterogeneity, the following section
seeks more clarity regarding the ecosystem concept and what it encapsulates, by conducting a
review of the literature regarding the nature and concomitant characteristics of ecosystems.
2.2. Ecosystem Characteristics
The previous section discussed the evolution of the ecosystem concept and highlighted that
there are diverse conceptualizations of ecosystems in current ecosystem research and streams.
The most frequently referenced ecosystem types are business ecosystems (Moore, 1993; 1996),
entrepreneurial ecosystems (Autio et al., 2014), innovation ecosystems (Zahra & Nambisan,
2011), knowledge ecosystems (Clarysse et al., 2014), platform ecosystems (Hein et al., 2019),
and service ecosystems (Akaka & Vargo, 2015). While reference is made to different
conceptualizations of ecosystems, the shared purpose of most ecosystem types is to collectively
co-generate some common output with other actors, while remaining an autonomous entity
(Adner, 2017). The ecosystem metaphor further also provides a vehicle to describe the
coordinated efforts and actions of hierarchically independent organizations (public, and/or
private sector) and individual actors for different value creating purposes, across different
21
spaces (physical or virtual), and in different formations (Fuller et al., 2019; Hannah &
Eisenhardt, 2018; Jacobides et al., 2018). As the different members within an ecosystem co-
evolve over time, their capabilities and relations to others are redefined in order to keep pace
with an ever-changing market and customer base (Helfat & Raubitschek, 2018). In most
ecosystems member relationships combine aspects of both collaboration, as well as
competition, where complementarity between capabilities and ecosystem-level output is
central, for example the complementarity of capabilities found in smartphones and applications
(also referred to as apps) (Fuller et al., 2019).
Ecosystems thus entail a big shift from static, company-centric and traditional perspectives of
strategy and competitive advantage, to dynamic and collaborative value creation (Kapoor,
2018). The literature asserts that this loosely connected configuration of relationships creates
options for new path exploration and exploitation that a traditional company might not have
the time, risk tolerance or resources to create and capture alone (Kapoor, 2014; 2018). Drawing
from the extant literature on ecosystems, Table 3 provides a summary of key factors which
outline the nature of ecosystems and their characteristics.
Table 3: Key characteristics of ecosystems
Factor Characteristic Description
Actors Network oriented • Encompasses overlapping networks of networks,

rather than discrete, linear value chains (Fuller et al.,
2019; Kapoor, 2018)
Diverse • Multiple actors, co-specialized at times, who create,

scale, and serve markets in ways that are beyond the
capacity of any single organization or individual
(Autio & Thomas, 2020; Granstrand & Holgersson,
2020)
Connected • Embedded ecosystem actors are directly and

indirectly connected through their resource-integrating
interactions (Frow et al., 2019; McColl-Kennedy et al.,
2020)
Activities Externally focused • Focus is on activities that extend beyond individual

company borders (Adner, 2017, Peltier et al., 2020)
Interdependent • Presence of complementarities and interdependencies

(Complementary/ between actors to create focal value proposition
Collaborative) (Akaka et al., 2013; Kapoor, 2018)
• Actors are motivated to collaboratively co-create
among firms, customers, stakeholders and other
ecosystem members (Hannah & Eisenhardt, 2018)
• The nature of the interdependence between actors
22
Coopetitive; (i.e., cooperative, competitive, or coopetitive), which
Cooperative; impacts the ecosystem strategy to follow (Trischler et
Competitive al., 2020)
Alignment Dynamic • Ecosystem relationships and capacities coevolve

rather than being static (Moore, 1996; Quero Gervilla
et al., 2020)
Emergent • Generates and embraces unanticipated shifts,

reversals, and unintended consequences (Iansiti &
Levien, 2004; Trischler et al., 2020)
Influence based • Shaped by partial influence rather than full ownership

or control of assets and resources (Akaka et al., 2013;
Vargo & Lusch, 2017)
Artifacts Holistically created • The aim is to collaboratively combine firms’

individual offerings into a coherent, customer-facing
solution, product, knowledge repository (e.g.,
knowledge ecosystem) (Adner, 2006; Jacobides et al.,
2018)
Upstream and • Focal innovation or solution often covers the full set
downstream of components (upstream) and complements
(downstream) that support it (i.e., innovation
ecosystems, platform ecosystems, service ecosystems).
• Customers use the end product, not the firm (Fuller et
al., 2019; Kapoor, 2018)
Four distinct factors are differentiable in Table 3, with accompanying ecosystem characteristics
to describe how these traits contribute to the nature of ecosystems. These characteristics are
discussed in more detail below.
Actors Ecosystems mostly comprise a diverse and interconnected set of actors, that formally
and informally interact in a non-hierarchical manner, to co-create mutual benefits, i.e. ‘value’
(Autio & Thomas, 2020; Ganstrand & Holgersson, 2020; Jacobides et al., 2018). The actors
can consist of innovative organizations (e.g., research institutes, science and technology parks,
universities, industry partners), entrepreneurial organizations (e.g., start-ups, venture
capitalists, public sector agencies), or innovative and entrepreneurial processes (e.g., new
business model platforms, service or digital platforms). Ecosystems typically bring together
multiple networks and actors from different industries and sizes in order to create, scale, and
serve markets in ways that are beyond the capacity of any single organization or any traditional
industry (Greeven & Yu, 2020). The diversity and collective ability of each member in the
ecosystem to learn, adapt, and innovate together, are key determinants of long-term success
(Birkinshaw, 2019).
23
Activities To meet increasing customer demands and ensure the long-term health of the whole
ecosystem, all ecosystem members need to collaborate, so that all can derive mutual benefit
(Peltier et al., 2020). Interests, goals and values are aligned for the materialization of a focal
value proposition (Akaka et al., 2013). The concurrent presence of complementarities and
interdependencies between the diverse set of actors is one of the key characteristics of
ecosystems (Kapoor, 2018). Actor complementarity creates or enhances the value proposition
and therefore facilitates an economic relationship between offers (Adner, 2017). In turn,
interdependence implies a structural relationship between offers relating to how they are
connected for the purpose of value creation (Kapoor, 2018). Change in one offer may thus
impact on the value that is contributed by the other, as the actors’ respective offers are often
connected through system-level architecture (McColl-Kennedy et al., 2020).
Alignment Jacobides et al. (2018, p.2257) conceive the ecosystem as “an economic community
of interacting actors that all affect each other through their activities, considering all relevant
actors beyond the boundaries of a single industry”. This implies dynamic relationships where
a responsiveness to changes, both on a micro- and macro-level, would impact on the
performance of not only individual ecosystem members, but also the community as a whole
(Iansiti & Levien, 2004). Teece (2007) contends that this environment affects the ecosystem’s
dynamic capabilities and also its ability to build sustainable competitive advantage. No pre-
defined blueprint exists for ecosystem management (Autio & Thomas, 2020); rather, the
emergence and evaluation of opportunities for value creation and capturing necessitates
adaptive strategies to achieve competitive advantage. Similarly, when collaborating with others
and co-evolving based on a responsiveness to changes in one’s environment, the indirect
influence of others on the ecosystem, as well as the influence that the ecosystem exerts on
others, plays a more central role than asset ownership or full control (Fuller et al., 2019).
Although limited in its empirical support, previous research has also explored ecosystem
management from the point of view of ‘hub’ or ‘keystone’ firms, who serve to provide network
stability through managing knowledge mobility and appropriating innovation (Azzam et al.,
2017; Dhanaraj & Parkhe, 2006). Adner (2017, p.42) proposes that “the ecosystem is defined
by the alignment structure of the multilateral set of partners that need to interact in order for a
focal value proposition to materialize”. Alignment structure is defined as “the extent to which
there is mutual agreement among the members regarding positions and flows,” which then
becomes the objective, pursued through a firm’s “ecosystem strategy” to “secure its role in a
competitive ecosystem” (Adner, 2017, p. 47).
Artifacts An artifact represents the products, services, intangible resources, technological and
non-technological resources, or business models and solutions that serve as ecosystem outputs
(Granstrand & Holgersson, 2020). The purpose of an ecosystem is to create or exploit the
connection between a core product or solution, its components, and the complementary
products or services, that would jointly provide value for its customers (Jacobides et al., 2018).
An ecosystem may thus consist of collaborative actors that co-evolve through complementary
and competitive activities, to provide artifacts that address customer needs (Granstrand &
Holgersson, 2020). As new ways are forged to create value, ecosystems lead to the discovery
of new ways in which to create and capture value (Subramaniam, 2020). Central to this process
24
of value co-creation is an understanding of how competitive advantage is achieved through the
interplay of the various actors’ dynamic capabilities, the coordination of relational resources,
or the implementation of strategic mechanisms inherent to an ecosystems approach (Bacon et
al., 2020).
With the development of the ecosystem concept and its unique characteristics considered, the
section to follow offers an overview of different types of ecosystems as found in the literature.
The purpose of this section is to assess the differences and commonalities between different
ecosystem types to determine whether they can be coalesced. In addition, assessing the
differences and commonalities between different ecosystem types can aid in establishing
further theoretical and empirical clarity regarding the concept from an industrial marketing
perspective.
2.3. Ecosystem Types
Before adopting the ecosystem term as a standalone concept (Adner, 2017; Ansari et al., 2016;
Hannah & Eisenhardt, 2018; Kapoor, 2018), major research streams employed the term in
service of established and nascent concepts. Established concepts include the business
ecosystem (Moore, 1993; 1996), innovation ecosystem (Iansiti & Levien, 2004), and platform
ecosystem (Parker & Alstyne, 2008), while more nascent notions include the entrepreneurial
ecosystem (Ács et al., 2008) and service ecosystem (Vargo & Akaka, 2012). The various
ecosystem approaches differ in terms of relevant focal actors, configuration of activities,
alignment structures, and ecosystem output or nature of its artifacts. An overview of the major
ecosystem literature streams, their respective focus areas, including selected references to
academic literature and practical examples, are provided in Table 4.
25
Table 4: Major ecosystem literature streams, ecosystem types and differences in focus
Ecosystem stream Focus areas Practical examples
Business ecosystem • Emphasizes collaboration Alibaba

Comprises both and supply chain aspects
upstream and (Adner, 2017; Iansiti &
downstream value Levien, 2004)
network actors, • Highlights the co-evolution
related technologies of competition and
and institutions. collaboration (Moore, 1993)
Innovation ecosystem • Firm-centric innovation Silicon Valley

An ecosystem ecosystems related to the
consisting of actors, focal actor and its technology,
technologies, platform, brand, etc.,
and institutions that connecting the various actors
enable innovation. or stakeholders around it
(Autio & Thomas, 2014;
Rohrbeck et al., 2009)
• National or regional
innovation systems (Clarysse
et al., 2014; Thomas & Autio,
2020)
• Technological innovation
systems (Adner & Kapoor,
2016; Almanopoulou et al.,
2019)
Modular ecosystem • Mostly narrow in scope, Apple iOS

An ecosystem that consisting of focal firm(s),
consists of with complementors and
independently suppliers. Customer either
designed components adopts or accepts ecosystem
yet function as an output, which would not be
integrated whole in viable if it did not meet
terms of its value customer needs (Kapoor,
offering. 2018)
• Customers choose among
the components and/or how
they are combined as modules
to make up a particular
platform or service offering
(Hannah & Eisenhardt, 2018)
Platform ecosystem • Typically governed by a Uber (including Uber

Ecosystems centered platform leader that facilitates Eats, Uber Freight,
around a technology- connections to various sides Uber Health, Uber
mediated digital of markets for value exchange Everything)
platform. and creation (Gawer &
26
Cusumano, 2014; Greeven &
Yu, 2020)
Service ecosystem • Key concept in S-D logic, Fitbit

Ecosystems that focus provides the unit of analysis
on value co-creation for value co-creation activities
in service exchange among actors integrating
and resources. resources and exchanging
services within dynamic
networks, facilitated by
institutional arrangements
(Vargo & Lusch, 2017).
• Nested within or part of a
larger system, where systems
influence each other, thus
evolving the service
ecosystem (Trischler et al.,
2020).
Entrepreneurial ecosystem • Start-up and entrepreneurial Triple Helix model of

Ecosystems that ecosystems that are often university-industry-
enable the emergence located in particular government
and geographical areas or around partnerships, e.g., the
growth of new a certain industry Research Triangle
businesses to heighten (Ács et al., 2017; Isenberg, Park in North
the competitiveness of 2010) Carolina, USA
a region.
Knowledge ecosystem • Large number of actors High Technology

Ecosystems where the grouped around knowledge Campus Eindhoven
main interest and exchange or a central non-
outcome is the proprietary resource for the
creation and benefit of all actors (Järvi et
exploration of new al., 2018; Valkokari, 2015).
knowledge through • Usually confined to a
joint research work, specific geographic locality
collaboration, or the and encompasses research,
development education to share explored
of a shared knowledge knowledge, and technology
base. transfer (Van der Borgh et al.,
2012).
27
According to Table 4 there are seven major ecosystem literature streams, each pointing to a
different ecosystem type. A brief overview of each of these ecosystem types is provided to
highlight their respective focus areas and properties.
Business ecosystems emphasize the economic outcomes of business relationships, and focus
on customer value creation (Valkokari, 2015). Business ecosystems further encompass the
cooperation of different companies to jointly deliver a product or service to a customer, which
no single firm would have been able to accomplish individually (Adner, 2006; Iansiti & Levien,
2004; Kumar et al., 2015). Innovation ecosystems are distinguished from business ecosystems,
in that their goals are innovation-related (Aarikka-Stenroos & Ritala, 2017), and they are often
analyzed from a technological systems perspective (Markard & Truffer, 2008). Innovation
ecosystems explore new knowledge in order to exploit it for the creation and capturing of value
(Valkokari, 2015), and its members include both individual actors, as well as private and public
organizations (Clarysse et al., 2014). Modular ecosystems comprise a set of components
(upstream) and complements (downstream) that support and contribute toward the building of
a bigger, central, value proposition or architecture (Adner & Kapoor, 2010). A modular
ecosystem has a clear supply-push and value production emphasis (Adner, 2017; Hannah &
Eisenhardt, 2018; Jacobides et al., 2018). Platform ecosystems revolve around technological
platforms and platform architecture that connect multiple sides of markets, like users,
advertisers, and content providers (Gawer & Cusumano, 2014; Kapoor, 2018). By connecting
to the platform, complementors can generate complementary innovation and gain access to the
platform’s customers (Jacobides et al., 2018). As an emergent and rapidly growing stream,
service ecosystems represent “relatively self-contained, self-adjusting systems of resource-
integrating actors connected by shared institutional logics and mutual value creation through
service exchange” (Vargo & Akaka, 2012, p. 207). The focus of entrepreneurial ecosystems is
the creation and growth of new businesses in a particular geographical area to heighten the
competitiveness of the region or grow its economic outlook (Isenberg, 2010; Roundy et al.,
2018). A knowledge ecosystem consists of users, producers and supporters of new knowledge
(Järvi et al., 2018). The members of knowledge ecosystems are organized around joint
knowledge search and exploration, in order to contribute to the joint knowledge base
(Valkokari, 2015).
Thomas and Autio (2020) recently proposed a typology of ecosystems to further probe what
the differences and commonalities between these various types of ecosystems are. Their
typology relies on two dimensions. The first dimension refers to ecosystem-level output and
the second refers to research emphasis. Ecosystem-level output, or shared goals, takes three
main forms, namely an ecosystem value offering targeted at a defined audience, a business
model innovation, such as a new start-up venture, or new research-based knowledge (Thomas
& Autio, 2020). The second dimension, research emphasis focuses on the emphasis of scholarly
attention, in which case the authors differentiated between community dynamics, output co-
creation, and interdependence management.
For the purposes of this dissertation the three conceptual commonalities identified from the
terminological components in the previous section, namely ecosystems-as-structure,
28
ecosystem-based activities, and ecosystem-level output, are used to replace their second
dimension with three areas of terminological emphasis. The purpose of this synthesis is two-
fold. First, to clarify any potential overlapping ecosystem characteristics that are present in
more than one type of ecosystem, and second, to explore whether there are distinctive and
unique characteristics within these types of ecosystems that could cumulatively shed light on
the phenomenon as a vehicle for competitive advantage within industrial marketing. In short,
the delineation clarifies the research emphasis and the types of ecosystems that this dissertation
focuses on. Figure 3 presents the adapted ecosystem typology.
Figure 3: Ecosystem typology
Source: Adapted from Thomas and Autio (2020)
Based on the conceptual commonalities as derived from the definitions, the ecosystem
typology as adapted from Thomas and Autio, 2020, suggests that there are mainly three
overarching ecosystem types, namely innovation ecosystems, entrepreneurial ecosystems, and
knowledge ecosystems. These three types of ecosystems are now discussed in more detail.
2.3.1. Innovation Ecosystem
Due to resource constraints and an increased demand for specialization, individual-level firms
find it challenging to develop and commercialize a technology-based offering from beginning
to end on their own (Clarysse et al., 2014). This has given rise to the emergence of “complex
constellations of organizations” (Walrave et al., 2018, p. 6) in the form of innovation
ecosystems. Innovation ecosystems consist of multiple stakeholder approaches to co-create and
29
produce a focal value proposition. It often entails shared technological compatibilities in order
to co-align, which may be in the form of a platform or a service (Adner, 2017; Autio & Thomas,
2014; Jacobides et al., 2018). Valkokari (2015) suggests that intermediaries play an important
bridging role between actors within an innovation ecosystem, through facilitating interaction
and building interdependencies. Interaction among actors in innovation ecosystems has the
main goal of creating, delivering and appropriating value in the form of an overarching
common offering, which Walrave et al. (2018) refer to as the ecosystem’s value proposition.
An innovation ecosystem value proposition is the focal goal or performance achieved for end
users, based on the contribution and combination of activities of all the actors in the ecosystem
(Ulaga & Reinartz, 2011).
Echoing previous suggestions (Jacobides et al., 2018; Thomas & Autio, 2020), and based on
the identified overarching characteristics of innovation ecosystems, it is proposed that
innovation ecosystems comprise four types of ecosystems: ‘business ecosystems’, with an
emphasis on the interactive flow of activity between members of an ecosystem to deliver an
ecosystem value offering targeted at a defined audience (Iansiti & Levien, 2004); ‘modular
ecosystems’, with an emphasis on the collective and co-produced value proposition of the
ecosystem targeted towards a defined audience (Hannah & Eisenhardt, 2018); ‘platform
ecosystems’, which emphasize the centrality of structural alignment of all members of the
ecosystem to bring the focal value proposition to fruition (Teece, 2020); and ‘service
ecosystems’, where the service offering to a defined audience is the focal ecosystem value
proposition around which actor activities and exchange of resources are centered (Vargo et al.,
2020). Different configurations may constitute different ecosystems (Adner, 2017). The
heterogeneity of innovation ecosystem members provides complementary resources and
capabilities for the shared benefit of the whole ecosystem. Innovation ecosystems thus
encapsulates an ecosystem that exhibits a consistent ecosystem-level offering of value or
ecosystem-level output, that is innovation-driven and targeted towards a defined audience.
2.3.2. Entrepreneurial Ecosystem
An entrepreneurial ecosystem differs from an innovation ecosystem in the sense that it doesn’t
focus on providing an ecosystem value offering targeted at a defined audience (Thomas &
Autio, 2020). Instead, entrepreneurial ecosystems cultivate a shared knowledge base by
employing and organizing technological advances and infrastructure in new ways, which
facilitate some form of ecosystem output to create, deliver, and capture value, for example
business model innovation or the ventures that embody them. As a result, these business models
can be applicable in any sector and targeted at any audience (Ács et al., 2013; Isenberg, 2010;
Spigel, 2017). Thomas and Autio (2020) suggest that an entrepreneurial ecosystem’s audience
is predominantly internal, as it consists of new ventures that leverage the business model
experience of others to discover new practices to capitalize on (Autio et al., 2018).
Conceptually, entrepreneurial ecosystems comprise the connection between regional economic
development strategy, entrepreneurial activity and innovative initiatives associated with job
creation and urban revitalization (Ács et al.,2008; Ács et al., 2017; Adner, 2017; Audretsch &
Belitski, 2017; Isenberg, 2016; Roundy, 2017; Roundy et al., 2018; Spigel & Harrison, 2018).
30
In the entrepreneurial environment, various potential and existing interconnected
entrepreneurial actors need to be interlinked to reach a common performance goal. Mason and
Brown (2014, p.5) define all these actors as “entrepreneurial organizations (e.g. firms, venture
capitalists, business angels, banks), institutions (universities, public sector agencies, financial
bodies) and entrepreneurial processes (e.g. the business birth rate, numbers of high growth
firms, levels of ‘blockbuster entrepreneurship’, number of serial entrepreneurs, degree of
sellout mentality within firms and levels of entrepreneurial ambition) which formally and
informally coalesce to connect, mediate and govern the performance within the local
entrepreneurial environment.” Brown and Mason (2017) argue that the nonlinearity of the
entrepreneurial ecosystem concept has been key in its evolution. Audretsch et al. (2019) build
on this idea by underlining that the entrepreneurial ecosystem is directly affected by network
externalities, governmental support, knowledge spillovers and the turbulent competitive
environment in which it exists. Changes in government policy, for example, can have an
irrevocable impact on the developmental trajectory of an entrepreneurial ecosystem (Brown &
Mason, 2017).
The entrepreneurial ecosystem comprises clusters with various firms, universities, science
parks, and governmental agents and agencies, which collaboratively form the structure within
which the entrepreneur should navigate their path. As an example, public sector incubators
often involve universities, as connections to universities are considered to provide new
knowledge and opportunities for innovation which firms could then access and exploit (Mason
& Brown, 2017). The Triple Helix model (Etzkowitz & Leydesdorff, 2000) is an example of
an interaction cluster between university, industry and government which represents the
embeddedness of actors in an ecosystem. Universities develop contractual agreements with
industry partners to conduct research in particular areas and as such, exploit the economic
potential of the opportunity. With an increased demand from knowledge-producing institutions
like universities to commercialize their knowledge for economic gain (Miller & Ács, 2013),
the Triple Helix model is characterized by reciprocal relationships among university-industry-
government, in which each attempt to enhance the performance of the other (Leyden & Link,
2015).
2.3.3. Knowledge Ecosystem
The central activity and output of a knowledge ecosystem includes the collaborative exploration
of new knowledge and collective knowledge exchange processes” (Thomas & Autio, 2020;
Van der Borgh et al., 2012). Knowledge is used as the most important medium of interaction
among ecosystem members (Iansiti & Levien, 2004). The ecosystem-level output of
knowledge ecosystems are generally research-based knowledge and associated applications.
Knowledge ecosystem members jointly create and explore new knowledge as a shared
resource, with Järvi et al. (2018) stating that knowledge ecosystems mostly occur in pre-
competitive and pre-commercialization settings. As a result, this type of ecosystem is generally
removed from knowledge exploitation and commercialization, both considered to be
downstream activities (Valkokari, 2015).
31
Knowledge ecosystems are often multi-stakeholder, geographic clustered organizations that
benefit from their physical proximity or location close to universities, research institutes or
technology hubs (Clarysse et al., 2014). Companies locate in these particular geographic
hotspots in order to develop and exchange tacit knowledge, for example, during the early
growth and development phases of a project’s R&D (Van der Borgh et al., 2012). During these
phases the knowledge exchange intensity, as well as the effectiveness and efficiency of the
other participants, greatly depends on social interaction among actors in the ecosystem and
thus, physical proximity facilitates this interaction (Gupta et al., 2007). In this respect,
knowledge ecosystems are “organizations comprising diverse actors bound together by a joint
search for valuable knowledge while having independent agency also beyond the knowledge
ecosystem” (Järvi et al., 2018, p.1524).
From an emphasis perspective, the research focus of this dissertation is centered on how
competitive advantage is achieved through an ecosystems approach in industrial marketing.
The synthesized ecosystems typology further concentrates the focus to explore only innovation,
entrepreneurial and knowledge ecosystems as the ecosystem-level units of analysis. The
section to follow discusses some theoretical perspectives regarding ecosystems and
competitive advantage to provide a lens through which the research problem can be assessed.
2.4. Theoretical Perspectives: Ecosystems and Competitive Advantage
Recent events, like the Coronavirus pandemic, have exposed the vulnerabilities of firms and
organizations whose competitive advantage is solely nested in the ownership of unique
physical assets (Greeven & Yu, 2020). Cruise lines, airlines, manufacturing and traditional
retail have all struggled to swiftly adjust their business models to continue to deliver value to
their customers. There are, however, companies that have created competitive advantage by
leveraging their ecosystem of partnerships, networks and hierarchically independent business
relationships, to swiftly adapt their offering to a disrupted environment and market. This
ecosystem is aligned to the analogy of natural ecosystems – a community of living organisms
that adapt and evolve with their environment, to collectively operate as a unit (Smith & Smith,
2015). Using the ecosystem metaphor in a marketing context, the purpose of the analogy is to
highlight that the goal of the unit is to jointly improve performance, and performance measures
are at the heart of marketing strategy (Mintz & Currim, 2013).
Metaphors, akin to the ecosystem concept, have long provided analogies through which to
express competitive strategy frameworks within marketing (Cornelissen, 2003; Hunt &
Menon, 1995; Rindfleisch, 1996). By stimulating creativity through “metaphoric transfers”
(Hunt & Menon, 1995, p.88), metaphors develop marketing knowledge by enabling the transfer
of concepts, propositions, and theories from other disciplines. Research provides examples of
the symbiotic use of metaphors to describe and provide constructive, reflective and systematic
value to the literature on competitive advantage (Achrol, 1996; Arndt, 1985; Eliashberg &
Chatterjee, 1985). From an industrial marketing perspective, competitive advantage in
ecosystems accounts for the creation of a differentiated value proposition that attracts not only
the end customer, but also the required partners to bring the value proposition to fruition
32
(Colombo et al., 2019). Traditionally, it has been proposed that competitive advantage is driven
by the value creating strategy of a single organization, where successfully implemented
strategies will lead to superior performance (Barney, 1991). In turn, this would facilitate
competitive advantage to “outperform current or potential players” (Passemard & Calantone,
2000, p. 18). According to Kumar et al. (2015), the ecosystem relies on a web of entities that
coordinate a set of activities to deliver utility to mutually connected customers. The ecosystem
perspective thus acknowledges the importance of the demand-side of how firms create value
and take into account the different elements that contribute to value. In addition, it also takes a
macro view of the external actors that contribute to the focal firm’s value creation (Kapoor,
2018) ─ not just as rivals or competitors, but also as cooperatives.
Fast-changing economic, technological and competitive developments in today’s business

environment compel firms to reexamine traditional strategies to achieve and increase their
competitive advantage (Day, 2014). Strategies could entail focusing on the interrelationships
and interdependencies among businesses (Porter, 1998), developing or capitalizing on superior
skills, or leveraging superior resources (Day & Wensley, 1988). Identifying and exploiting the
potential of interrelationships create opportunities to reduce costs or enhance differentiation
(Porter, 1998), while superior skills encompass greater resources relating to abilities,
competences and human talent, with superior resources implying “greater stock of financial
and other capital, better productive capacity, better location, access to supply and the like”
(West et al., 2015, p.495). All three of these strategies imply a process model of competitive
advantage, where marketing strategy regards competitive advantage as an ongoing and agile
process.
From a theoretical perspective, a growing number of scholars have raised calls to better
understand two central notions in recent years.
1. In a web of interdependent networks, what is the impact of social relations on ecosystem
competitiveness (Thomas & Autio, 2020)? Network theory has been proposed to study
intermediaries’ interactions within and between ecosystems (Clarysse et al., 2014;
Hayter, 2018). As ecosystems by definition consist of interdependent actors and entities
which interact, based on complementarities, research using network theory contributes
to a better understanding of how social relations and network analysis apply in
networked environments (Venkatraman & Lee, 2004). Research assessing the impact
of social capital as a network theory approach in ecosystems has, however, been
limited, with no research to date empirically examining how social capital embedded
in networks relates to the attainment of competitive advantage of ecosystem structures
(Theodoraki et al., 2018).
2. If firms benefit from the participation of others in an ecosystem, what does that convey
about how they attain advantage (Helfat & Campo-Rembado, 2015; Jacobides et al.,
2018; Jacobides, 2019)? As existing frameworks like the RBV mostly revolve around
owned resources, how should this be approached when the resources exist at the level
of the ecosystem? Furthermore, when linking RBV with dynamic capabilities and
ecosystems, what resources and capabilities are valuable within this dynamic
ecosystem context in industrial marketing?
33
To contribute to the literature and address these calls from a theoretical perspective, the section
to follow briefly discusses social network theory, with a particular focus on social capital, as
well as RBV and dynamic capabilities.
2.4.1. Network Theory and Social Capital
Network theory focuses on patterns of connectivity and actor ties, while the ecosystems
approach sets the boundaries around the entities and actors that need to interact in order for the
value proposition to materialize (Adner, 2017). In ecosystems, specialized members provide
specific resources for the value creation in the ecosystem (Thomas & Autio, 2013). By doing
this, the total cost of provided services is reduced within the ecosystem and the feasibility of
the whole ecosystem is boosted (Theodoraki et al., 2018). Members of the ecosystem
collaborate with each other to strengthen individual performance and contribute according to
their core competencies, which results in all benefiting from the value that is created by the
ecosystem.
Rooted in the structural holes approach by Burt (2004), and the strong and weak ties
perspective by Granovetter (1983), social capital theory fundamentally proposes that network
ties provide access to resources (Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1998). As a concept that provides a
foundation for describing and characterizing interrelationships, both within and between
organizations, social capital has drawn increased interest from industrial marketing and
management scholars (Batt, 2008; Carmona-Lavado et al., 2010; Hsieh & Tsai, 2007). As a set
of resources rooted in relationships (Andriani, 2013), social capital conceptually provides a
measure through which to assess the cooperative reciprocity of associations (Batt, 2008). With
limited consensus on how social capital should be defined, Lin (2008) proposes that it is
constructed of social obligations and connections between members of a group, which builds
on Coleman's (1988, p. 98) assertion that social capital is defined by its function, i.e., “it is not
a single entity, but a variety of different entities that have two characteristics in common: they
all consist of some aspect of a social structure, and they facilitate certain actions of individuals
who are within the structure.” Bourdieu (1986, p. 248) emphasizes that it is “the aggregate of
the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more
or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition.” Putnam (2000,
p. 19) focuses on the mutually beneficial characteristics of the connection, by stating that
“social capital refers to connections among individuals – social networks and the norms of
reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them.”
In spite of alternative perspectives, a common thread is the notion of member interaction that
facilitates the creation and maintenance of embedded social assets. Nahapiet and Ghoshal
(1998) distinguish between three social capital dimensions: structural, cognitive, and relational.
34
2.4.1.1. Structural Dimension
The structural dimension of social capital reflects the “pattern of relationships between the
network actors” (Inkpen & Tsang 2005, p. 152) and concerns the network ties, network
configuration, and the network stability. Network ties refer to the specific ways in which actors
are related. These ties are a principal aspect of social capital as they influence resource
combinations and resource exchange, which concomitantly affects innovation (Tsai &
Ghoshal, 1998). Strong ties have shown to be fundamental for the knowledge transfer of
complex, high-quality and tacit knowledge (Uzzi & Lancaster, 2003), whereas weak ties are
more conducive to the transfer of explicit knowledge (Hansen, 2002). The strengthening of ties
may also reach a threshold, where extra time and effort ploughed into a relationship only lead
to marginal or declining returns (Reagans & McEvily, 2003).
The pattern of links among network members is determined by the configuration of a network
structure (Filieri & Alguezai, 2014). Configuration elements include hierarchy, density, and
connectivity. As a consequence of its impact on access to and contact among the members of
the network, these elements have a bearing on the agility and ease with which knowledge can
be exchanged. Network density varies from dense to sparse, where McFadyen et al. (2009)
argue that sparse networks provide diverse knowledge and is the optimal configuration for the
creation of knowledge. Lazer and Friedman (2007) provide evidence that network density, over
time, reduces the diversity of information available in a network, which reduces long-run
innovation. According to Inkpen and Tsang (2005), the overall corporate structure has the
potential to inhibit or facilitate the connectivity between certain members within the network.
Network stability refers to any change of membership within the network, where a highly
unstable network may “limit opportunities for the creation of social capital because when an
actor leaves the network, ties disappear” (Inkpen & Tsang 2005, p. 153). It has been suggested
that network stability has widespread implications on the transfer of knowledge within a
network.
2.4.1.2. Relational Dimension
In contrast to the structural dimension, the relational facet focuses on the direct ties and
outcomes of interactions (Inkpen & Tsang, 2005). As such, this dimension is critical in building
trust and confidence between actors, which, for the purposes of an ecosystem-configuration of
interdependence between actors, relies on the willingness of the actors to share their knowledge
(Schofield, 2013). Trust, however, implicitly entails risk – risk of exposing one’s ignorance or
lack of knowledge (Kang & Hau, 2014), risk related to cost if the other party is found to be
untrustworthy (Rousseau et al., 1998), and risk of exploitation due to a knowledge partner’s
opportunistic behaviour (Holste & Fields, 2010). The transfer of knowledge is inhibited and
reduced in relationships that lack relational trust, as literature asserts that knowledge sources
will limit their engagement to known and trusted partners in such instances (Kang & Hau,
2014).
35
2.4.1.3. Cognitive Dimension
The final social capital dimension is termed the cognitive dimension. This dimension
represents those resources that provide shared representation, interpretation, understanding and
meaning among all entities involved (Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1998). In their contextual focus on
knowledge transfer relevance, Inkpen and Tsang (2005) focus particularly on two aspects of
this dimension among network members, namely shared goals and shared culture. De Wit-de
Vries et al. (2018, p. 7) assert that shared goals are needed to “reach a common understanding
of the desired output” and to align for a shared interpretation of the results (Tsai & Ghoshal,
1998). The absence of shared goals creates ambiguity and hampers the cause and effect
differentiation of the knowledge exchange (Davenport, et al., 1998; Partha & David, 1994).
From an ecosystem perspective, successful interrelationships between members within an
ecosystem would be governed by clearly communicated shared goals (Robinson & Malhotra,
2005).
Shared culture represents the degree to which behavioral norms determine relationships. Gulati
et al. (2000, p.205) closely relate this to tie modality, which is defined as the “set of
institutionalized rules and norms that govern appropriate behaviour in a network”. At times,
these rules are clearly stipulated in formal contractual format, but most often they are
informally agreed upon, as is often the case with organizations in an ecosystem where actors
are not necessarily seen as formally connected to each other via contractual arrangements
(Trischler et al., 2020). Shared culture may create ‘excessive expectations of obligatory
behavior’, which could result in either a fixed mindset and an unwillingness to explore beyond
the borders of the network, or free riding on the opposite side of the spectrum. Where cultural
compromises need to be made, conflict often follows. Similarly, if one of the parties is
inflexible in relation to their way of doing things, cultural conflict and stifled knowledge
transfer are often the by-products. Being too heavily weighted in one dimension, while having
too little of another social capital dimension may, however, also lead to bad performance (Yang
et al, 2011). Assessing the impact of social capital on performance measures within an
ecosystem context would thus serve to highlight its effect on competitive advantage.
2.4.2. Resource-Based View and Dynamic Capabilities
Competitive advantage focuses on the firm’s resources and capabilities, which also form the
basic components of the RBV (Akter et al., 2020). Although sometimes viewed as synonymous
(Newbert, 2008), it is important to distinguish between resources and capabilities (Wu et al.,
2016). Resources could be basic tangible resources (e.g., machinery), or basic intangible
resources (e.g., organizational policies and procedures, or employee knowledge and skills) that
coherently fit together (Hunt, 2000). Capabilities refer to the firm’s ability to use its resources
to bring a desired outcome to fruition (Amit & Schoemaker, 1993). From a theoretical
perspective, the RBV theory views firms as a bundle of these resources and capabilities
(Wernerfelt, 1984), and argues that firms’ resources and capabilities will differ in nature and
extent (Nath et al., 2010). Research asserts that the survival of a firm is dependent on its ability
to create new resources, develop and expand its capabilities, and ensure that its capabilities are
36
inimitable to maintain competitive advantage (Day & Wensley, 1988; Helfat & Peteraf, 2009;
Prahalad & Hamel, 1990).
Nath et al. (2010) argue that merely possessing superior resources does not equate to attaining
competitive advantage. Instead, the key lies in the capability of the firm to manage its scarce
resources and to effectively employ its capabilities to enable superior performance, by
complementing an existing resource-capability framework (Makadok, 2001; Morgan et al.,
2009; Peteraf, 1993). Capabilities are thus different from resources as they are intertwined with
the tacit knowledge embedded within organizations, making it more difficult to transfer and
therefore more inimitable (Makadok, 2001).
In turn, dynamic capabilities are defined as an organization’s ability to “integrate, build and
reconfigure internal and external competencies in response to rapid environmental changes”
(Teece et al., 1997, p. 516). As a theoretical framework, it has received considerable currency
to study the capacity to flex tangible and intangible assets for competitiveness (Eisenhardt &
Martin, 2000; Nonaka, 1994; Teece et al., 1997). Although it is generally considered that the
dynamic capabilities perspective is built on the foundations of the RBV of the firm, Teece et
al. (1997) explicitly differentiate them from the static orientation of RBV (Akter et al., 2020).
RBV focuses on current resources and operational capabilities, whereas dynamic capabilities
emphasize the meaningful improvement and adaptation of these resources. In the pursuit of
continuous competitive advantage, dynamic capabilities provide a means through which to
renew and reconfigure the assets and capabilities of an organization or ecosystem ─ particularly
in the face of a changing environment (Teece, 2014; Zollo et al., 2013). According to Akter et
al. (2020), dynamic capabilities provide a strong theoretical foundation to sense and seize
opportunities, e.g., technological progress. Dynamic capabilities could thus shed light on how
an ecosystem approach could provide competitive advantage in the face of dynamic
environment and competitive changes (Schilke et al., 2018).
Following the review of the ecosystem concept in literature, a clarified definition,

conceptualization, delineation of ecosystem types, and the theoretical perspectives with which
to study them, the next section discusses the development of the four research questions that
guided this dissertation.
2.5. Development of Research Questions
To answer the overarching research problem, the study was broken down into four separate
research questions, each addressed by a different paper. As a whole, the four research questions
and papers offer insight into the research problem relating to how competitive advantage is
achieved through an ecosystems approach in industrial marketing. As it has been suggested
that competition in ecosystems inherently operate on two different, but interacting levels
(Adner, 2017; Jacobides et al., 2018; Kapoor, 2018), it is proposed that competitive advantage
both within the ecosystem, referring to “the security of activities, positions, and roles, which
affects the distribution and capture of value across positions” (Adner 2017, p. 49); and between
ecosystems, relating to “collective advantages in creating and capturing value relative to rival
37
constellations of actors” (Adner, 2017, p. 49) is assessed. In addition, the terminological
delineation and proposed ecosystem typology in the preceding section, together with the
theoretical frameworks highlighted due to literature-identified competitive considerations,
enable the development of four research questions. The two sections to follow first provide an
overview of the theoretical focus of the research questions, followed by the type of ecosystem
focus of the research questions.
2.5.1. Theoretical Focus of Research Questions
Recent years have seen a steady increase in interest among industrial marketing scholars and
practitioners relating to the ecosystems concept. As a means to characterize a variety of value
creating interactions and relationships between interconnected organizations, ecosystems differ
from value chain and supply chain paradigms by including both vertical and horizontal
relationships between actors (Bacon et al., 2020; Jacobides et al., 2018). It is also distinguished
from value networks and other value creation-oriented constructs, as it focuses on value
appropriation and use (Kapoor, 2018).
Building on these differentiated ecosystem approaches from an industrial marketing

perspective, a review of the literature and theoretical perspectives regarding ecosystems points
out that little is known about how competitive advantage is achieved through an ecosystems
approach (Bacon et al., 2020; Granstrand & Holgersson, 2020; Pellikka & Ali-Vehmas, 2016).
In addition, empirical assessments have been undertaken in other streams of literature, yet from
an industrial marketing perspective, empirical analysis is still limited (Aarikka-Stenroos &
Ritala, 2017). Considering the nature of competitive advantage, the literature suggests the use
and application of suitable theoretical frameworks to assess these strategies within ecosystems.
Theoretical approaches that have been suggested include network approaches such as social
capital theory, that focus on the competitive advantage of interdependent relationships (Burt,
2001; Lin, 2008), revolving around the dynamics of structural, relational and cognitive
dimensions of relationships within ecosystems (Adner, 2017; Anggraeni et al., 2007; Autio &
Thomas, 2020); as well as the RBV (Barney, 1991; Penrose, 1959; Wernerfelt, 1984), and
dynamic capabilities (Teece et al., 1997) theoretical frameworks. Based on these literature-
identified calls for more research using these theories, the research questions will employ either
one of these two theoretical approaches: network and social capital theory, or RBV and
dynamic capabilities theoretical frameworks.
2.5.2. Ecosystem Focus of Research Questions
The research problem guiding the inquiry of this dissertation seeks to address how is
competitive advantage achieved through an ecosystems approach in industrial marketing? To
contribute to the maturing of the ecosystem approach as a research concept and perspective for
studying the relations between firms and their networks in industrial marketing (Aarikaa-
Stenroos & Ritala, 2017), the conceptual differences and distinctions between different
ecosystems should also be taken into account (Oh et al., 2016). The ecosystem typology, as
adapted from Thomas and Autio (2020), proposes three main types of ecosystems based on
38
ecosystem-level output and terminological emphasis: innovation ecosystems, entrepreneurial
ecosystems and knowledge ecosystems. As such, this dissertation will use these three
ecosystem types as the respective units of analysis.
In addition, Clarysse et al. (2014) and Hayter (2018) state that network theory is well suited
for studying interactions within and between ecosystems, while Audretsch et al. (2019) and
Jacobides et al. (2018) assert that the dynamism of the interrelationships and interdependencies
on complementary resources, poses yet unanswered questions in terms of how advantage is
attained within and across ecosystems for cross-comparative analysis. Better insight into the
competitiveness, both within and between these ecosystems, would thus further serve to
cumulatively shed light on the phenomenon as a vehicle for competitive advantage within
industrial marketing. To address the overall research problem and add to the theory and
literature on ecosystems in industrial marketing, the formulated research questions are
presented next.
2.6. Formulation of Research Questions
The delineation of the two main theoretical approaches and the respective ecosystem types
enable the formulation of four distinct research questions, flowing from the overarching
research problem previously articulated. These research questions are as follows:
RQ1: What are the drivers of competitiveness using a network analysis approach to
ecosystems?
Figure 4 provides an illustrative overview of how these four respective research questions
address the articulated research problem. The dimensional considerations regarding the
theoretical approach, as well as the ecosystem type and dynamics of competitive advantage –
either within or between ecosystems – are also indicated.
39
Figure 4: Overview of research questions
The four research questions are discussed in more detail below, including a brief overview of
each accompanying paper that forms the critical path of this body of research.
2.6.1. Research Question 1 is addressed by Research Paper 1
Research question 1 addresses the research problem through the lens of network theory. The
research question probes the underlying idea that in ecosystems, firms do not just rely on their
own resources, knowledge and capabilities, or compete through stand-alone strategies, to
achieve advantage over rivals (Audrestch et al., 2019). Instead, the research question seeks to
analyze the strategic and competitive advantage of relying on network effects and externalities
offered through knowledge spillovers, shared resources, and public sector support (Lehmann
& Menter, 2018), which reach beyond firm-specific approaches to competitive advantage
(Porter, 1990). A nuanced approach like this would serve to enrich the extant literature
regarding the close competitive environment and causal relationships present within
ecosystems (Kuratko et al., 2017).
Entrepreneurial ecosystems, in particular, create macro-level competitive advantage and value

for ecosystems and individual firms and sectors by flexing network-related links, thus
contributing to the shaping of regional innovation outcomes (Audretsch et al., 2019;
Cunningham et al., 2017). Described as geographically-bound social networks of institutions
and cultural values that stimulate and sustain entrepreneurial activity, entrepreneurial
ecosystems foster regional competitiveness through economic growth and heightened
40
innovativeness (Roundy, 2016; Roundy et al., 2018; Spigel, 2016). Despite evolving and inter-
disciplinary discussions on entrepreneurial ecosystems, a comprehensive understanding of the
drivers of competitive advantage, and accompanying research directions or latest developments
in the field, are elusive. More analyses are needed to streamline the proliferated discussion on
entrepreneurial ecosystems from a wide range of disciplines, which would serve to provide an
underpinning understanding regarding the impact of ecosystems on regional competitiveness
and strategies (Audretsch et al., 2019). To achieve this, a clear understanding of the current lay
of the land is necessary, which would uncover the current theoretical understanding of this
ecosystem type from an industrial marketing point of view. To contribute to the discourse and
explore this area in more depth, the following research question and research paper are
proposed:
RQ1: What are the drivers of competitiveness using a network analysis approach to
ecosystems?
Paper 1: Entrepreneurial Ecosystems and the Public Sector: A Bibliographic Analysis
In the entrepreneurial environment various potential and existing interconnected

entrepreneurial actors need to be interlinked to reach a common performance goal. Central to
the success of entrepreneurial ecosystems is the notion that business performance depends on
the quality and quantity of interactions between internal firm factors, e.g., investment in
innovation, marketing and internationalization strategies, as well as external stakeholders,
including public sector organizations, universities and research institutions (Audretsch et al.,
2019).
The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the origins of the entrepreneurial ecosystems
concept in literature, to offer insight into key concepts that have emerged in research over the
past twenty-five-years (1995 to 2019). The paper employs bibliographic techniques to track
knowledge, identify trends, and highlight the primary emerging patterns and conceptual
clusters. Using the visualization of similarities software tool, VOSviewer, a comparative
overview of the diverse representation of entrepreneurial ecosystems developments across
disciplines, countries, institutional clusters, networks and teams will be presented. The analysis
offers a map of the covered territory and facilitates the identification of gaps and under-
researched areas in the field, as well as driving themes that have contributed to our better
understanding of entrepreneurial ecosystems as a vehicle to drive regional competitiveness.
Despite the evolving discussions on entrepreneurial ecosystems in a wide range of disciplines,

few studies have conducted a critical analysis of the entrepreneurial ecosystems literature, with
a surge in recent calls to do so (Audretsch et al., 2019; Cavallo et al., 2018; Mack & Mayer,
2016). In addition, little is actually known about the networks of people, institutions or
countries that have shaped the development of the field. It is important to identify the most
influential scholars, as these individuals are the thought leaders who have contributed to the
conceptual development and will further advance the research domain in literature. Identifying
the most important universities is of equal importance, as these are the institutions that have to
41
date been most successful in developing and disseminating new knowledge, and are training
future thought leaders. From a policy perspective, identifying the countries that are most
productive in producing research in this area and have shown to have dynamic involvement
from a public-sector viewpoint, assists us in comparing and contrasting the trajectory of the
phenomenon as an important component of competitive regions.
Through bibliographic analysis, the paper thus aims to contribute to entrepreneurial ecosystems
research, by identifying influential and prolific individuals, institutions and countries between
1995 and 2019. This will provide an overview of the origins of the entrepreneurial ecosystems
concept and assist scholars to better track knowledge and identify trends that have developed
in literature over this period. The purpose of reviewing the extant literature through the lens of
a network analysis approach is four-fold. First, it provides insight into key concepts that have
emerged in entrepreneurial ecosystems research over the past quarter-century, with regional
competitiveness being the main ecosystem-level output. Second, it provides clarity regarding
the key concepts and research directions which have contributed to a better understanding of
what the drivers of the competitiveness of regions are, using an entrepreneurial ecosystems
approach. Third, it offers a map of the covered territory and facilitates the identification of gaps
or under-researched areas in the field. From a policy perspective, it finally offers a comparative
overview of the diverse representation of entrepreneurial ecosystems developments across
countries – with particular reference to public sector contributions and its impact on regional
competitiveness.
Research question 2 follows on from the previous in the sense that the identified drivers of
competitiveness in entrepreneurial ecosystems, as per research question 1, are further probed
to see its applicability in an innovation ecosystem context. Furthermore, areas identified as
under-researched or showing potential for further examination, are scoped for potential
assessment. As previously identified in the literature and per the theoretical perspectives
proposed for this dissertation, an exploration of the role of social networks within ecosystems
and the leveraging of social capital among the various network members could also present
timely insights in times of limited resources and great uncertainty.
As the aggregate product of embedded resources derived from a network of structural,

relational and cognitive connections, literature has shown that social capital plays a
complementary role in organizational knowledge transfer (de Wit-de Vries et al., 2018; Kang
& Hau, 2014; Leposky et al., 2017). Using a social capital approach, research question 2 seeks
to understand the role that social capital plays in attaining competitive advantage within an
innovation ecosystem, specifically within university and industry-related innovation
ecosystems, as these have shown, in paper 1, to be pertinent drivers of regional competitiveness
within entrepreneurial ecosystems. The research question guiding this inquiry and addressed
by paper 2, is as follows:
42
Paper 2: Leveraging Social Capital in University-Industry Knowledge Transfer Strategies: A
Comparative Positioning Framework
The purpose of paper 2 is to present a framework that would comparatively assess how the
presence of social capital in knowledge transfer strategies between university-industry
innovation ecosystems would impact the transformation of knowledge into products and
processes for commercial exploitation. Structural, relational and cognitive social capital
dimensions are mapped against the knowledge transfer strategy that the university-industry
partnership employs: leveraging existing knowledge or appropriating new knowledge. A clear
differentiation is made between creating new knowledge, i.e. disruptive innovation – a
knowledge appropriating strategy; or using existing knowledge for the purpose of incremental
innovation or development – a knowledge leveraging strategy. By establishing a link between
social capital and the knowledge transfer strategy employed, industrial marketers can gauge
how it impacts the competitive positioning of the innovation ecosystem.
University-industry partnerships in three different countries, all from regions at varying stages
of development, are compared using the proposed framework. These include a developed
region (Canada), a transition region (Malta), and a developing region (South Africa). The main
objective of the paper is to present a social capital university-industry knowledge transfer
framework to guide ecosystem actors to better align their knowledge strategy with their
respective competitive imperative. Competitiveness, in this context, would be based on the
comparative position of the region, according to their respective knowledge transfer strategy
and leveraging of social capital between ecosystem actors, as a means to achieve strategic
advantage. The premise is that the knowledge spillover from university to industry would
promote accelerated regional learning and alignment, facilitating innovation by virtue of the
provision of new ideas, building on the notions as expressed in paper 1. In turn, this would
enhance market performance (Riege, 2005) as a domino-effect of the development of better
products or processes, faster go-to-market, the commercialization of research, as well as skilled
human capital (Etzkowitz et al., 2012). As a strategic imperative, university-industry
knowledge transfer thus provides bidirectional access to institutional knowledge (Inkpen &
Dinur, 1998), with a high level of social capital among ecosystem actors, thus operating as a
driver for competitive advantage. This would result in all parties standing to benefit from the
collaboration (Barbolla & Corredera, 2009), as per the characteristics of an innovation
ecosystem (Bramwell et al., 2012).
Building on the findings of research question 2 and paper 2, research question 3 will address
the overarching research problem by operationalizing dynamic capabilities in the context of
knowledge-related resources, and quantitatively analyzing its impact on the innovation
performance of innovation ecosystems across 129 countries at different stages of economic
development. Both questions 2 and 3, as well as their accompanying papers, assess competitive
advantage between ecosystems. Expanding on performance-oriented measures of competitive
43
advantage, as employed in paper 2, the guiding question and accompanying paper for research
question 3 is as follows:
Paper 3: Innovation Performance: The Effect of Knowledge Based Dynamic Capabilities in

Cross-Country Innovation Ecosystems
Literature asserts that a firm’s ability to achieve market success is dependent on the efforts of
other innovators in its environment (Aarikka-Stenroos & Ritala, 2017). This environment acts
as an innovation ecosystem consisting of inter- and codependent relationships between the
members of the ecosystem (Moore, 1993). The innovation ecosystem underscores the dynamic
nature of innovation to achieve innovation outcomes (Bacon et al., 2020) or innovation
performance. Innovation ecosystems vary in terms of knowledge configurations, entity
specializations, innovative capacity and spatial distribution ─ with no panacea for success
(Kamaşak & Bulutlar, 2010; Manniche et al. 2017). Apart from idiosyncrasies regarding
context, characteristics and conditions within innovation ecosystems are of equal importance
to ensure sustained success (Autio et al. 2014; Penrose, 1959).
Despite the burgeoning interest in innovation performance in the context of innovation

ecosystems, little is known about its drivers (Adner & Kapoor, 2010; Autio & Thomas, 2014;
Maurer et al. 2011; Oh et al. 2016; Zahra & Nambisan, 2011). Research, however, indicates
that capabilities to innovate faster, better and smarter, and to transform and adapt to new
contexts through managing knowledge, provide competitive advantage (Peris-Ortiz et al.
2019). Since the emergence of the RBV (Barney, 1991) many theoretical perspectives have
emphasized knowledge and knowledge-related practices as fundamental to positive business
and innovation performance (Kazadi et al. 2016), especially where interconnected and
interdependent networks are at play (Galati & Bigliardi, 2017; Martín-de Castro, 2015).
Knowledge does not exist in a vacuum (Paavola et al. 2004) and similarly, innovation seldom
exists in isolation (Rybnicek & Königsgruber, 2019). Both knowledge and innovation are
embedded within a bigger innovation context with evolving, recursive interactions between
multi-level network members contained within the ecosystem (Acemoglu et al. 2016; De
Vasconcelos et al. 2018; Valkokari, 2015). In this respect, Knowledge-Based Dynamic
Capabilities (KBDC) are said to enable the exploration of organizational abilities to generate,
combine, and acquire knowledge resources to deal with environmental dynamics for innovative
market success (Beuter et al. 2019; Denford, 2013). However, few studies have empirically
examined the link between KBDC and innovation performance (Beuter et al. 2019; Cheng et
al. 2016; Zheng et al. 2011), and there are mounting calls to better understand how KBDC
impact innovation performance in the context of innovation ecosystems (Andreeva & Kianto,
2011; Malerba & McKelvey, 2020; Nunn, 2019). In view of these gaps, a review of the role of
KBDC in innovation performance, particularly within a broader innovation ecosystem, is
warranted.
44
From an industrial marketing perspective, a more comprehensive understanding of the KBDC
drivers of innovation performance within innovation ecosystems is important for the following
four considerations:
1. An understanding of the links between the various building blocks of KBDC and
innovation performance within an innovation ecosystem would facilitate and
expedite learning between actors within the ecosystem to accelerate the innovation
process.
2. Leveraging the expertise of actors and network members across the ecosystem
could improve the overall know-how and flow of information within the innovation
ecosystem.
3. Awareness of the diverse and complementary knowledge capabilities within the
interconnected and co-dependent members of the innovation ecosystem, may
heighten the potential of ecosystem members to sense and shape new innovation
opportunities.
4. Closely linked to the previous, an appreciation of the knowledge dynamics in an
ecosystem may stimulate the proliferation of new product, service, technology,
platform or process developments.
To expand on the previous research question and its assessment of the impact of dynamic
capabilities on the competitive advantage of ecosystems, focusing on innovation ecosystems
in particular, the fourth and final question focuses on how resource- and capability-based
theories can explain competition from a knowledge ecosystem perspective. Where innovation
ecosystems prioritize the joint exploitation of knowledge bases and knowledge transfer
between ecosystem members to materialize a focal value proposition, knowledge ecosystems
focus on the exploration of knowledge to create a shared knowledge base. Using a theory
elaboration approach, resource- and capability-based theories will be used to gain a better
understanding of how competition works in knowledge ecosystems. Knowledge ecosystems
have been said to operate in a pre-competitive state, yet little is known about what that entails
and if (or how) they attain competitive advantage. Knowledge ecosystems are regarded as a
regional community of hierarchically independent, yet interdependent heterogeneous
participants who advance the translation of primary knowledge into the development of new
products and services.
All ecosystem actors knowingly and willingly form part of the same ecosystem to, most often,
drive economic or market growth. Research institutes situated on university campuses are
viewed as knowledge-intensive entities that support economic transformation (Tödtling &
Grillitsch 2015). They enable actors from outside the university to access its resources, while
allowing the actors in this multi-stakeholder group to learn from and lean into a wider stock of
knowledge (Powell & Grodal 2005). Using a single in-depth case study, a university-based
keystone actor of a knowledge ecosystem is analyzed as the focal ecosystem for inquiry. The
research question and research paper is titled as follows:
45
Research Paper 4: Competition in Knowledge Ecosystems: A Theory Elaboration Approach

using a Case Study
Knowledge ecosystems do not address defined audiences to the extent that market choice
would be relevant for their survival (Thomas & Autio, 2020). In addition, they often consist of
a heterogeneous resource base which increases opportunities to gain access to complementary
resources and capabilities necessary to explore or expose knowledge (Naudé & Sutton-Brady,
2019). It would also contribute to the accumulation of a knowledge repository over time due
to the exchange of information (Ahuja, 2000), potentially increasing actor interdependence
(Teece & Pisano, 2003). Industrial marketing scholars would benefit from a more nuanced
understanding of the strategic and competitive dynamics present within these ecosystems, as it
offers insights on effectively engaging in collaborative initiatives to build a shared knowledge
base for exploitation and innovation-related outcomes. Furthermore, it also provides deeper
insight into knowledge transfer strategies, knowledge flow, and resources regarded as
knowledge stock, which, viewed cumulatively, could be leveraged to attain competitive
advantage for all ecosystem partners involved.
Following the discussion on the respective research questions and an overview of each research
question’s accompanying paper, Figure 5 provides an illustrative representation of the
overarching research problem, and a schema of how it will be addressed.
46
Figure 5: Schema of research problem, research questions and papers
47
2.7. Delineation: Construct, Context and Units of Analysis
With the theoretical and ecosystem focus of this dissertation reviewed, the definitional clarity
and ecosystem typology, as per the previous section, enable a more concise delineation of the
various areas that the research problem will address. In addition, the respective research
questions that aim to address the articulated research problem further provide distinct
parameters within which this research will operate. To ensure clarity in delineation, Figure 6
provides an overview of the construct, context and units of analyses that encompass this
research.
Figure 6: Delineation of construct, contexts and unit of analysis
As illustrated in Figure 6, the focal theoretical construct of this study focuses on how
competitive advantage is achieved through an ecosystem approach in industrial marketing.
The theoretical context of the overarching research problem will be assessed using the network
and social capital, as well as RBV and dynamic capabilities theories. These theories also form
the basis for the development of the four respective research questions, with two papers being
grounded in each of these theories. The various units of analysis comprise the three identified
main types of ecosystems, namely innovation, knowledge and entrepreneurial ecosystems.
Each paper, however, has a specific focus on an embedded unit of analysis, which forms part
of the particular ecosystem under inquiry.
For paper 1 the analysis of networks presents the key areas of research pertaining to the drivers
of regional competitiveness through an entrepreneurial ecosystems approach. In paper 2 the
university-industry partnerships of three particular countries, all at different stages of
development, form the embedded units of analysis for innovation ecosystems. For paper 3 the
embedded unit that is used for analysis is cross-country innovation ecosystems, as per each
respective country’s stage of economic development. Paper 4 entails an in-depth case study
exploration of a strategic marketing institute as the keystone actor in a knowledge ecosystem.
48
Chapter 2 sought to review the extant ecosystem literature to track the evolution and
development of the ecosystem concept. The conceptualization of the ecosystem construct in
the management and marketing literature provided an overview of ecosystem-linked research
themes in industrial marketing literature in particular. An ecosystem typology was presented,
which led to the identification of three overarching ecosystem types: innovation ecosystems,
entrepreneurial ecosystems, and knowledge ecosystems. The Chapter reviewed two streams of
theoretical thought, specifically focusing on theories which may provide a framework for
answering the research problem, namely, how is competitive advantage achieved through an
ecosystem approach in industrial marketing? These two streams are the RBV theory and
dynamic capabilities framework, as well as network and social capital theories. The Chapter
finally presented an explanation regarding the development of the four research questions as
well as provided an overview of the four papers that form the core of this dissertation. The
delineation of the constructs, context and units of analysis was also provided. Next, the
methodology of the four individual papers are presented, including the overall research
approach, strategy and design.
49
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY
3.1. Introduction
This Chapter entails an overview of the research methods to be collectively employed in this
study. The specific procedures or techniques used to identify, select, process and analyze the
information are presented in more detail. The research approach, research design, and the
research strategy followed, are elaborated on to provide a clear demarcation of the
methodology employed.
The overarching research problem with the associated research questions are illustrated in
Figure 7.
Figure 7: Overview of research questions
As per Figure 7, the dissertation is guided by an overarching research problem, which is

investigated by means of four respective research questions, each examined through an
independent research paper. The respective research papers and their structure are also further
explicated in this chapter to provide more clarity on how the research questions were
approached and answered from a methodological perspective.
3.2. Research Approach
The research approach refers to the research plans and procedures that would be most suitable
to use for a particular study topic (Creswell, 2015). The selection of the research approach is
50
based on the nature of the research problem or issue being addressed, the researchers’ personal
experiences, as well as the audience for the study (Mohajan, 2018). Broadly speaking, an
unstructured or structured approach can be taken (Dawson, 2019). An unstructured approach
is most often classified as qualitative research, with this approach allowing flexibility in all
aspects of the research process. This approach is most appropriate when exploring the nature
of a problem, issue or phenomenon without quantifying it (Mohajan, 2018). The main objective
with an unstructured approach would be to describe the variation in a phenomenon, situation
or attitude (Dawson, 2019). The structured approach is mostly classified as quantitative
research, in which case the objectives, design, sample and research questions, are
predetermined (Dawson, 2019). This mode of inquiry is more appropriate to determine the
extent of a problem, issue, or phenomenon by quantifying the variation (Mohajan, 2018).
Creswell (2015) proposes that “qualitative and quantitative approaches should not be viewed
as rigid, distinct categories, polar opposites, or dichotomies” (p.4). Instead, Newman et al.
(1998) suggest that they are representative of different ends on a continuum. In other words, a
study tends to either be more suited to a qualitative than quantitative research approach, or vice
versa. Both of these approaches have inherent strengths and weaknesses, and often studies
employ both approaches in order to sufficiently address a research problem, by using a mixed
methods approach. Mixed methods research resides in the middle of this continuum because it
incorporates elements of both qualitative and quantitative approaches.
A qualitative research approach entails exploring, and involves emerging questions and
procedures, which are mostly a form of inductive inquiry into a research problem (Creswell et
al., 2008). Quantitative research is employed when testing objective theories in order to
examine the relationships among variables (Mohajan, 2018). The variables are measurable,
typically on instruments which would allow the analyses of the data through statistical
procedures and techniques (Creswell, 2015). Qualitative research is mostly engaged in the
deductive inquiry of theories in order to generalize and replicate the findings. Mixed methods
research involves the collection of both quantitative and qualitative data, which then integrates
both forms of data for use in distinct designs that could involve philosophical assumptions
(Creswell, 2015) and theoretical frameworks (Dawson, 2019).
It is assumed that a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches provides a more

comprehensive understanding of a research problem than using either approach on its own. A
quantitative research approach is often associated with deductive approaches (based on logic),
while qualitative research methods are usually associated with inductive approaches (based on
empirical evidence) (Kothari, 2004). Similarly, deductive-quantitative designs are usually
more structured than inductive-qualitative designs (Kothari, 2004). As a starting point towards
developing the research strategy for this study, previous research approaches, designs and
methods employed in peer-reviewed academic marketing journals over the past five years
(2015 to 2020), which studied competitive advantage, competitiveness or competitive
strategies and ecosystems, are briefly reviewed and discussed next.
The first paper reviewed is that of Mackalski and Belisle (2015), who used a quantitative
51
research approach, with a quasi-experimental research design, to measure the short-term
spillover impact of product recall on a brand ecosystem. To assess the disclosure or
transformative behavior of a consumer ‘tribe’ within a consumer ecosystem, Healy and
Beverland (2016) employed an exploratory research design, with the research method of
netnography as part of a conceptual research approach in their study. To study service
ecosystems, Vargo and Lusch (2016) applied deductive theorizing to introduce an additional
institutional axiom to their service-dominant logic framework within service ecosystems. The
research approach of this study was conceptual, with a descriptive research design (Vargo &
Lusch, 2016). A paper by Cheng et al. (2018) studied the difference in consumer online
response rates between individual and aggregator service systems, to compare the
competitiveness of their online search ads within service ecosystems. To do this, the authors
conducted empirical research, making use of a quantitative research approach and an
experimental research design, using logistic regression (Cheng et al., 2018).
A paper by Hartmann et al., (2018) that examined service ecosystems, which was published in
the Journal of Marketing, developed a theoretical perspective of selling within service
ecosystems, from an institutional and service-dominant logic perspective. This paper was
conceptual in its approach, with a descriptive research design, employing deductive theorizing
(Hartmann et al., 2018). Guillemot and Privat (2019) is the only study that employed a
qualitative research approach to identify collaborative consumer communities’ relationship to
digital tools within a service ecosystem. The study used a phenomenological design, with 23
in-depth interviews being conducted to determine the role of technology in collaborative
consumer communities (Guillemot & Privat, 2019). In a recent study regarding health-care
referrals in a service ecosystem, O’Connor and Cook (2020) assessed patient referral leakage
and connectivity within a hospital network, by conducting empirical research, using a
quantitative approach with a descriptive research design. The last study that was assessed, was
that of Bacon et al. (2020), which explores the conditions for knowledge transfer success,
examining how knowledge transfer differs in coopetitive versus non-competitive ecosystem
partnerships. This empirical study made use of a causal-comparative research design,
employing fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), to study coopetition in
innovation ecosystems (Bacon et al., 2020).
Based on the review of research methodology on the focal topic, which has been published
specifically in marketing journals over the past five years, it seems that although not that many
studies have been conducted, a variety of research approaches, designs and methods have been
employed. Both empirical and a number of conceptual studies have been conducted, which
indicated that there is still much to explore regarding the ecosystem concept from a marketing
and specifically an industrial marketing perspective. Using the theoretical frameworks
previously identified and discussed, while seeking to fill the literature-identified gaps in
ecosystem theory and literature within the industrial marketing milieu, the research strategy
and design of this dissertation is discussed in more detail next.
52
3.3. Research Strategy and Design
This section provides more information regarding the research strategy of the study, including
research aspects that relate to the data sources, analysis of data and overall research methods
of the four papers. For ease of reference Table 5 provides an overview of the research strategy.
The rest of this section will expound on the various research aspects represented in the table.
Table 5: Summary of the research strategy of this dissertation
Paper Title Research Research Research Methods

Approach Design
1 Entrepreneurial Quantitative Exploratory Bibliographic
Ecosystems and the Public analysis, using
Sector: A Bibliographic secondary data
Analysis
2 Leveraging Social Capital Quantitative Descriptive Comparative

in University-Industry dimensional
Knowledge Transfer scoring, using
Strategies: A Comparative secondary data
Positioning Framework
3 Innovation Performance: Quantitative Descriptive Partial least squares

The Effect of Knowledge- structural equation
Based Dynamic modeling, using
Capabilities in Cross- secondary data
Country Innovation
Ecosystems
4 Competition in Knowledge Qualitative Exploratory Single in-depth
Ecosystems: A Theory case study, using
Elaboration Approach primary data
Using a Case Study
As summarily presented in Table 5, the research strategy of this dissertation entails a

combination of quantitative and qualitative research approaches, with two papers employing a
descriptive research design and two papers employing an exploratory research design. The
research methods used include a bibliographic analysis, comparative dimensional scoring, as
well as partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), all making use of
secondary data. For the final paper, a single in-depth case study was employed, which made
use of primary data.
In developing this research strategy the central research problem of this study, the literature-
identified gaps, calls for more research, as well as previous research relating to this issue was
considered. Firstly, the research strategy addresses one of the identified gaps in the ecosystem
literature, which calls for more empirical research regarding the central constructs of
competitive advantage within ecosystems, particularly in the industrial marketing stream.
53
Secondly, subsequent to reviewing previous research and research strategies examining this
issue from different perspectives within marketing, it seems that limited empirical research has
been conducted to distinctly elucidate our understanding regarding competitiveness and
competitive advantage through an ecosystem approach in industrial marketing specifically.
Consequently, the research strategy of this dissertation is predominantly empirical in nature.
Next, as a plan for the study, the research design provides the overall framework for collecting
the data, subjects, and research sites necessary to answer the research questions. The research
design provides the strategic framework of steps to take, bridging the research question and
execution, or to implement the research strategy (Durrheim, 2004). Research design refers to
the type of inquiry within qualitative, quantitative, or mixed method approach, which provides
focused direction for the procedures to be followed in a research design (Creswell, 2015). As
such, the research design can be defined as the “procedural plan that is adopted by the
researcher to answer the questions validly, objectively, accurately and economically” (Kumar,
2019, p.95). Denzin and Lincoln (1994) refer to the research design as the strategies of inquiry.
In light of the above, the section to follow describes the research design and research method
used for each of the papers in more detail.
3.3.1. Addressing Research Question 1
3.3.1.1. Research Design
The dataset for this analysis was retrieved through the Web of Science Core Collection
database. Web of Science is regarded as the foremost scientific citation platform for
comprehensive data-intensive research studies (Li et al., 2018). Web of Science enables the
researcher to specify the desired search term by using Boolean logic, which then includes or
excludes search terms, and specific journals. Previous research by Malecki (2018) explored the
prevalence and dominance of the entrepreneurial ecosystem environment in October 2017. The
author conducted searches in Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus of the full range of sources in
two databases. Based on this study, it was found that the term “entrepreneurial ecosystems”,
which emerged in the 2000s, has become the dominant term. Alvedalen and Boschma (2017)
similarly made use of the search term “entrep* ecosystem” to compare the relevant
entrepreneurial ecosystem literature with the “entrepreneurial system” literature. The authors
concluded that “entrep* ecosystem” saw a considerable increase in academic articles over the
past decade.
For the sake of consistency and in the light of its dominance as a term to use when referring to
this domain of research, the search term “entrepreneurial ecosystem*” was used as the search
query in October of 2019 to construct the dataset. Additionally, the scope of this research was
specific in presenting a snapshot representation of the current state of literature in this specific
field. The search query was restricted to only include articles, thus eliminating entries of any
other type, and with that, only relevant articles in English. Conference papers (16) were
54
removed to avoid duplication of information. Articles thus had to have used the terms
“entrepreneurial” and “ecosystem”, or variations of the word in the title, abstract or keywords
of the research in order to be eligible for analysis. The search was further restricted to the period
1995 to 2019, thus, a twenty-five-year period. The search resulted in 431 publications which
were used as data for further analysis.
Using the bibliographic analysis tool, VOSviewer, the paper also graphically mapped the
bibliographic material. As a means through which to visually represent citation networks, co-
citation, co-authorship, and the co-occurrence of keywords, VOSviewer has become an
influential tool (Van Eck & Waltman, 2014). Citation analysis facilitates the identification of
how documents cite each other, by counting the number of times that A cites B and vice versa
(Merigó et al., 2018). Co-citation takes place when two documents receive a citation from the
same third source (Shugan, 2006). Co-authorship represents the number of documents that are
co-authored by more than one author, institution or country, and shows how these are
connected. The co-occurrence of author keywords points out which keywords are most
frequently used, as well as the keywords that more frequently appear in the same documents.
As free, distance-based mapping software, VOSviewer is compatible with several online
databases to create visual bibliographic networks. Distance-based mapping represents the level
of closeness (e.g., authors, keywords) between two entities. The closer the entities are to each
other, the more closely they are related to each other. The maps are created following three
distinct steps. First, a similarity matrix is calculated based on the co-occurrence matrix. Second,
the VOS mapping technique is applied to the similarity matrix to create a map. And third, the
map is translated, rotated, and reflected to ensure consistent results (Van Eck et al., 2010).
3.3.1.2. Research Method
Paper 1 primarily made use of bibliometric methods and bibliographic analysis. Bibliometrics
is defined as a research area of information and library sciences that quantitatively analyzes
bibliographic data as derived from scientific publications (Broadus, 1987; Verbeek et al.,
2002). The purpose of bibliometrics is to highlight the nature and development of a research
domain (Pritchard, 1969), in order to classify and provide a representative overview of a set of
bibliographic documents (Merigó et al., 2018). The bibliographic analysis allows researchers
to explore knowledge diffusion and influence on a particular topic, within a particular domain
of interest, focusing on the networks that have been established within a scientific field (Kraus
et al., 2012). This method of analysis has increasingly gained popularity among academe due
to its "systematic, objective and replicable" nature (Most et al., 2018, p.231), which eliminates
potential subjectivity and researcher bias.
The bibliographic analysis incorporates an examination of citation, co-citation and co-

occurrence analysis, using established citation metrics to evaluate the scientific contribution of
different actors in the research domain (Aparicio et al., 2019). Different items serve as units of
analysis, such as keywords, scholars, journals, institutions, or countries (Merigó et al., 2016).
Citation, co-citation, and co-occurrence analysis are established and beneficial tools to explore
the knowledge structure of a particular domain (Servantie et al., 2016), with the two main
55
perspectives being productivity and influence (Podsakoff et al., 2008). Productivity is typically
measured by the number of publications, whereas number of citations is usually used as a
metric to gauge influence (Merigó et al., 2018). Journals are regarded as equal, with the number
of citations used as a proxy for journal quality (Rentschler & Kirchner, 2012). The influence
of specific journals can be assessed by examining the knowledge structures (Samiee &
Chabowski, 2012), respective authors (González et al., 2018), and the scientific influence of
specific articles (Most et al., 2018). Of specific interest was a closer examination of keywords
used when researching entrepreneurial ecosystems as vehicles for regional competitiveness,
which provided insight into areas of interest among researchers in the entrepreneurial
ecosystem research domain.
Paper 2: Leveraging Social Capital in University-Industry Knowledge Transfer Strategies:

A Comparative Positioning Framework
The research question guiding this paper focused on assessing the impact of social capital on
the knowledge transfer strategies employed within three different university-industry
partnerships, as examples of innovation ecosystems. To address this question, the objectives of
this paper were threefold. First, the respective social capital dimensions that are leveraged
during the process of university-industry knowledge transfer were examined across three
different regions: a developed region (Canada), a transition region (Malta), and a developing
region (South Africa). Three social capital dimensions and their accompanying sub-
dimensions, as originally proposed by Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998) and refined by Inkpen and
Tsang (2005) were then used as a guideline for this purpose. Second, the intent of the
knowledge transfer activity was explained to better understand the strategic imperative: either
gaining new knowledge (appropriating strategy), or leveraging existing knowledge (leveraging
strategy). Finally, a social capital university-industry knowledge transfer framework was
developed to guide university-industry partners and similar innovation ecosystems, to better
align their knowledge strategy with their respective competitive and innovation imperative.
3.3.2.2. Research Method
The study utilized the principles of secondary data analysis. The researcher analyzed existing
studies on university-industry knowledge transfer from each identified region, to explore
whether it contained the variables needed to address the current research question. Nine
applicable studies were found (three studies from each respective region), which were used as
secondary data sources for the analysis. The studies consisted of both peer-reviewed academic
research articles as well as publicly available data collected by the Science-to-Business
Marketing Research Centre of Germany as part of a 2011 European Commission project and a
research report on Canadian university-industry collaboration, by The Board of Trade of
56
Metropolitan Montreal (2011). Operational definitions of the variables in each of the studies
were first established to ensure that these were aligned to the objectives of this study.
The three different countries were chosen as they are representative of regions that are currently
at different stages of development (OECD, 2017) and are thus faced with different challenges
relating to knowledge absorption capacity, capabilities, market stability, and cultural values
(Geuna & Muscio, 2009; Schofield, 2013). These are all aspects that would influence both
social capital dimensions as well as knowledge transfer collaborations. These three countries
also share commonalities. All three are ranked in the top 30% of most innovative countries in
the world on the Global Innovation Index 2018 (Canada 18th; Malta 26th; South Africa 58th),
and in the top 30% of most competitive countries in the world on the Competitive Industrial
Performance Index 2016 (Canada, 18th; South Africa, 45th; Malta, 65th).
To address the first objective of the study, the researcher assessed the level of social capital
dimensions present in each of the various country-specific university-industry knowledge
transfer partnerships. A score of one was assigned to each social capital dimension which
positively impacts knowledge transfer. This was then coded to denote a high level of social
capital in that particular dimension. If a particular social capital dimension negatively impacted
the transfer of knowledge, no score was assigned to that dimension, which was then coded as
a low level of social capital in that particular dimension. In addition to distinguishing between
the various levels of social capital dimensions present, the study secondly set out to assess the
strategic intent of the knowledge transfer activity, based on the knowledge transfer strategy
typology by von Krogh et al. (2001). To do this, a differentiation was made between creating
new knowledge, i.e. disruptive innovation – a knowledge appropriating strategy; or using
existing knowledge for the purpose of incremental innovation or development – a knowledge
leveraging strategy.
Paper 3: Innovation Performance: The Effect of Knowledge Based Dynamic Capabilities in

Paper 3 commences by first reviewing the extant literature pertaining to innovation

performance and the role of knowledge and knowledge based dynamic capabilities (KBDC).
It proceeds to conceptualize KBDC as consisting of four elements and proposes hypotheses
linking these to innovation performance in an innovation ecosystem context. To test the
research hypotheses and proposed model, a descriptive research design is employed using
quantitative secondary data analysis. Secondary data pertains to any data that has been
previously collected by a researcher for another purpose and is freely available (Kothari, 2004).
The benefits of using secondary data include a significantly lower level of resources required
to obtain the data (Malhotra, 2010). However, a potential limitation to using secondary data,
may relate to its usefulness to address a specific research problem that the data was not
57
originally collected to address. Therefore, the data necessitated an evaluation of its reliability
(Malhotra, 2010).
3.3.3.2. Data and Sample
The data source for this paper was the publicly available Global Innovation Index 2019 dataset.
The Global Innovation Index is a collaborative research effort between Cornell University,
INSEAD and the World Intellectual Property Organization. The reasons for selecting the
Global Innovation Index 2019 as the primary data source for the paper were two-fold. First,
the magnitude of the dataset offers a near complete examination of countries across the globe
representing a significant proportion of the global population. In fact, the dataset spans 129
countries, representing 91.8% of the world’s population, accounting for 96.8% of the world’s
GDP (Dutta et al., 2019). Second, the Global Innovation Index employs a broad
operationalization of innovation that allows for the data to reflect improvements made to
outcomes (Dutta et al., 2019).
3.3.3.3. Measures
Effective economies are those that succeed in translating innovation inputs into innovation
outputs, thus yielding a higher innovation performance score (Dutta et al., 2019). The Global
Innovation Index provides innovation input and output sub-indices together with innovation
performance scores. The innovation input sub-index comprises areas within national
economies that enable innovation activities in a country. The innovation output sub-index
encompasses information about outputs as a result of innovative activities within economies.
The innovation performance is the average of both the input and output sub-indices for the
particular country. The Global Innovation Index dataset also provides a country-level
innovation efficiency score that captures innovation performance, based on the output and
input sub-index scores.
Given the focus of the research model on the role of KBDC in driving innovation performance,
the components of the Global Innovation Index dataset relating to the conceptualized KBDC
constructs were identified for use as data. These KBDC are knowledge creation, knowledge
absorption, knowledge diffusion and knowledge impact. Knowledge creation, diffusion, and
impact are all regarded as output indicators of innovation performance. Operationally,
knowledge creation is a result of both inventive and innovative activities, while knowledge
diffusion reflects the outputs achieved, based on the knowledge that has been absorbed.
Knowledge impact represents elements that reflect the impact of innovative activities at both a
micro- and macro-economic level post market implementation. On the other hand, knowledge
absorption is regarded as an input indicator of innovation performance, and encompasses
elements that are connected to economic sectors with high-tech content or those that are key to
innovation-directed activities. All data for the KBDC constructs consisted of composite
variables that range from 0-100.
58
3.3.3.4. Data Analysis
A variance-based structural equation modelling (SEM) technique, using the partial least
squares (PLS) approach (Ringle et al., 2015) was used. SmartPLS was selected as the most
appropriate software for this analysis for three reasons. First, as a predictive technique, PLS
does not require as large a sample size as covariance-based SEM (Anaza et al., 2015; Hair et
al., 2019). Second, when working with secondary data, Hair et al. (2019) note that PLS-SEM
is especially suitable in offering flexible interaction between theory and data. Third, PLS-SEM
allows the research focus to move from strictly confirmatory to predictive and causal-predictive
modeling (Hair et al., 2019).
PLS data analysis necessitates assessing the measurement model as well as the structural model
(Chin, 1998; Hair et al., 2014). First, the psychometric properties of the measurement model
were analyzed and tested for common method bias, followed by the evaluation of the structural
model. To test relationships by economic level of development, the dataset was split according
to the 2019 United Nations published country classification of economic development (United
Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2019), grouped as either a developed,
transition or developing economy.
Paper 4: Competition in Knowledge Ecosystems: A Theory Elaboration Approach Using a

Case Study
3.3.4.1. Research Design and Research Method
Little research has been conducted in the area of strategic and competitive dynamics within
knowledge ecosystems, and as such, a theory elaboration approach is taken, which first entails
conceptualization of constructs and then conducting empirical research (Fisher & Aguinis,
2017). This dual process facilitates discovery and exploration rather than validation (Van
Maanen Sørensen, & Mitchell, 2007). For the empirical component of the study, qualitative
data was collected. The analysis of qualitative data allows a naturalistic, interpretative approach
to explore the phenomena in-depth (Flick, 2013). It also allows the researcher to take the
perspectives and accounts of the research participants as a starting point for further exploration
(Ritchie et al., 2013).
The research design entailed a single case study to collect rich empirical evidence from this
particular contextual knowledge ecosystem, organized around the joint search for knowledge
for shared exploration. A single case study is most appropriate when the research requires an
in-depth, qualitative understanding to provide rich insights into a substantive topic (Jones et
al., 2009). As a qualitative form of inquiry, case study methodology focuses on a detailed
investigation of a particular entity to provide an analysis of both the context and the processes
involved in the topic being studied (Henry et al., 2020). Due to the lack of relevant existing
data as well as the complexity of the variables involved, a detailed case study offered the best
59
method to explore the questions relating to context-specific strategic decision-making and
competition (Teece, 2020). Previous studies have also pointed to the need for more in-depth
case studies at the ecosystem and keystone actor level, to contextualize the strengthening,
sustaining, or undermining of competitive advantage (Van der Borgh et al., 2012).
To explore how competition works, the case study focuses on the specific knowledge
ecosystem context of a university-based marketing research institute, the University of Cape
Town Liberty Institute of Strategic Marketing (UCT Liberty ISM or Institute for short), based
in Cape Town, South Africa. As the keystone actor in its knowledge ecosystem, the UCT
Liberty ISM was selected as an ideal case. It fully aligns with the definition of a knowledge
ecosystem, consisting of hierarchically independent, yet interdependent heterogeneous
participants who advance the translation of research knowledge. Also, characteristically of a
knowledge ecosystem, the UCT Liberty ISM is a university-based organization, with most of
its ecosystem actors consisting of public and private sector partners, brands, government, and
other research institutes in and around the same geographic area. The fact that the knowledge
ecosystem focuses on strategic marketing, further contributes to a more nuanced understanding
from an industrial marketing perspective.
3.3.4.2. Data Collection
From a data collection perspective, the following procedures were followed. Research
interviews were scheduled both with the UCT Liberty ISM head of projects, Dr James
Lappeman, as well as the founding Institute director, Professor John Simpson. Prior to the
scheduled interviews, both research participants were sent short research primers via email,
relating to the objectives and the main constructs that would be discussed during the interviews.
Both participants sent back written replies to the research primers to highlight particular areas
which they felt they could best contribute towards during the interviews. These responses were
used as opening questions for the interviews. Face-to-face interviews were initially scheduled,
but, due to lockdown regulations during the COVID-19 pandemic, the interviews were
facilitated online via the Zoom platform. Both participants were individually interviewed
twice, with the interviews being video and audio recorded, as well as fully transcribed to aid
the analysis. The first round of interviews lasted approximately 90 minutes each. The second
round of interviews lasted approximately one hour each, serving to clarify any potential
misunderstandings following the first interview, and providing an opportunity to add any
additional information and context. The second round of interviews are indicative of the “linear
but iterative process” of case study research (Yin, 2017, p. 25).
As it is preferable that multiple sources of evidence are used throughout the case study method
(Yin, 2017), the research participants also shared additional archival documentation, research
reports and some secondary data, which further aided in assessing the phenomenon in a way
that the video and audio recordings would not have been able to do. Once all recordings were
transcribed, the researcher shared the full transcripts and initial analysis with the participants
for final clarification of any particular points. For the purposes of this study, a theory
elaboration approach was adopted to extend the theory in cases where "pre-existing conceptual
60
ideas or a preliminary model drives the study design" (Lee et al., 1999, p.164) and hence
increase internal validity (Gibbert et al., 2008).
3.4. Quality Criteria
To ensure that the research in the various papers is characterized by evidence that is
trustworthy, applicable to multiple practical settings, consistent and neutral or unbiased
(Frambach et al., 2013), the various quality criteria or standards for good evidence, are
discussed next.
In paper 1, Entrepreneurial Ecosystems and the Public Sector: A Bibliographic Analysis, the
research analysis encompassed the results from a very specific search query. Although the use
of more and broader search terms would yield different results, a recent study by Malecki
(2018) indicated that the term ‘entrepreneurial ecosystems’ has become the dominant term in
this field of research. In terms of the documents being used for analysis, only English peer-
reviewed research articles formed part of the scope of study, and thus the inclusion of other
research material, such as book chapters or other publication types, might provide different
insights. As this paper only sought to include articles that had undergone a rigorous review
process, it is believed that this is not a quality limiting factor. The citations included only
represent articles published during a particular period of time and citation count for an article
is also dependent on how long it has been since the article has been published. As such, it
would be necessary to keep pace with the literature and to update reviews such as these, to
ensure that relevance and dependability is maintained.
Paper 2, Leveraging Social Capital in University Industry Knowledge Transfer Strategies: A

Comparative Positioning Framework, only offers a snapshot representation of the university-
industry partnerships present in the three regions identified, due to the cross-sectional design.
As such, findings relate to a particular context at a particular point in time and the researcher
does not deny the influence of additional macro-contextual factors on the interpretation of the
results. The design did, however, allow the researcher to measure the prevalence of all factors
under investigation (Kumar, 2019), allowing for multiple outcomes to be studied (Creswell,
2015). In addition, the researcher and co-authors analyzed existing studies on university-
industry knowledge transfer from each identified region, and iteratively analyzed these studies
to explore whether it contained the variables needed to address the central research question of
this paper.
For paper 3, Innovation Performance: The Effect of Knowledge Based Dynamic Capabilities
in Cross-Country Innovation Ecosystems, an evaluation of the usefulness of the secondary data
was of prime importance. The reliability of the data, in particular examining the recency of the
data, the method of collection and the possible presence of bias (Kothari, 2004) was chiefly
assessed. The Global Innovation Index 2019 dataset is the most recent global innovation dataset
with a record of dependable publication. Furthermore, the dataset was subject to a number of
consistency and reliability assessments, including an examination of conceptual consistency,
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data checks, statistical coherence and a qualitative review (Dutta et al., 2019). As such, “the
Global Innovation Index 2019 ranks are reliable and for most economies the simulated 90%
confidence intervals are narrow enough for meaningful inferences to be drawn” (Dutta et al.
2019, p. 381).
To address the quality criteria in paper 4, Competition in Knowledge Ecosystems: A Theory

Elaboration Approach Using a Case Study, the credibility of the data was assessed by
referencing multiple sources of data (i.e., data triangulation), and theories (i.e., theory
triangulation), as well as asking the research participants for their feedback on the interpretation
of the data (i.e., member checking) (Frambach et al., 2013). The transferability of the data was
also addressed by describing the context of the case study in as much detail as possible (i.e.,
thick description), serving to make the findings as transferable or applicable as possible to other
contexts and settings. Finally, the confirmability of the data was reviewed by searching the
data and literature for evidence that would disconfirm the findings, which, by doing so, basing
findings on the study participants’ feedback and not the researcher’s biases (Frambach et al.,
2013).
3.5. Structure of Individual Papers
An overview and description of the four papers that comprise this dissertation is presented in
this section. As per the previous section, each respective paper is based on a research question,
which has been derived from the overarching research problem of this dissertation: How is
competitive advantage achieved through an ecosystem approach in industrial marketing?
Based on this research problem, four research questions were formulated as follows:
1. Research Question 1: What are the drivers of competitiveness using a network

analysis approach to ecosystems?
2. Research Question 2: How does social capital impact the competitive advantage of
ecosystems?
3. Research Question 3: How do dynamic capabilities impact the competitive advantage
of ecosystems?
4. Research Question 4: How do resource- and capability-based theories explain
competition in ecosystems?
3.5.1. Paper 1
Robertson, J., Pitt, L., & Ferreira, C. (2020). Entrepreneurial Ecosystems and the Public
Sector: A Bibliographic Analysis. Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, 100862.
Journal: Socio-Economic Planning Sciences
Impact factor: 4.149 (2019)
Status: Published
Paper 1 answers Research Question 1: What are the drivers of competitiveness using a network
analysis approach to ecosystems?
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As a starting point to address the research problem, the first paper employs bibliographic
analysis to construct and visualize bibliometric networks from a body of scientific literature.
The text from research articles relating to entrepreneurial ecosystems as a vehicle to foster
regional competitiveness, were mined to gain both a comprehensive understanding of the
overall research directions, as well as identify the latest developments in the field, spanning the
period 1995 to 2019. The analysis of networks, through the use of bibliographic techniques,
also provided an opportunity to track knowledge, identify trends, and highlight conceptual
clusters and primary patterns in the literature.
As a still-establishing field, a set definition for entrepreneurial ecosystems is still elusive

(Roundy & Fayard, 2019), and as such, the paper started by providing a consolidated overview
of the conceptual development of the entrepreneurial ecosystem term to also clarify its
definition. To conceptually define entrepreneurial ecosystems, the constituent parts of the term
were first outlined. Based on a synthesis of the literature, the following is proposed:
entrepreneurship refers to the social and relationally-embedded process of creating new goods
and services by exploring, evaluating and exploiting opportunities (Granovetter, 1985; Shane
& Venkataraman, 2000); and ‘ecosystem’ can be defined as the structural alignment of a set of
multilateral partners who interact for the materialization of a focal value proposition, mostly
for the purposes of gaining competitive advantage (Adner, 2017; Moore, 1993). Following on
from this definition it was clear that to reach a common performance goal, various
interconnected entrepreneurial actors needed to be interlinked (Mason & Brown, 2014).
Addressing the interactive nature of entrepreneurial ecosystems, an overview of the interplay

between the different actors within the entrepreneurial environment, focusing in particular on
public sector involvement, was also provided. Audretsch et al. (2019) underlines that the
entrepreneurial ecosystem is directly affected by network externalities, governmental support,
knowledge spillovers and the turbulent competitive environment in which it exists. Changes in
government policy, for example, can have an irrevocable impact on the developmental
trajectory of an ecosystem (Brown & Mason, 2017). The ecosystem comprises clusters with
various firms, universities, science parks, and governmental agents and agencies, which
collaboratively form the structure within which the entrepreneur should navigate their path. As
an example, public sector incubators often involve universities, as connections to universities
are considered to provide new knowledge and opportunities for innovation which firms could
then access and exploit (Mason & Brown, 2017). The Triple Helix model (Etzkowitz &
Leydesdorff, 2000) is an example of an interaction cluster between university, industry and
government which represents the embeddedness of actors in an ecosystem.
Following on from the conceptual clarification of entrepreneurial ecosystems and its interactive
and multi-network nature, the paper set out to conduct a bibliographic review of the
entrepreneurial ecosystems literature to date. As far as could be ascertained, this paper was the
first to conduct a bibliographic study on entrepreneurial ecosystems as the research domain,
and the first to employ the network and citation analysis mapping tool, VOSviewer, to
graphically visualize these networks. The bibliographic network analysis reported on the
following aspects of the entrepreneurial ecosystems literature: first, the growth, breadth, and
63
depth of entrepreneurial ecosystems literature was reviewed and analyzed; second, the leading
authors, institutions and countries were presented; third, the predominant research trends were
graphically mapped and analyzed; and finally, a network map of the most prominent and
frequently co-occurring keywords were illustratively presented, clearly indicating keyword
network clusters that serve as associated determinants of entrepreneurial ecosystem drivers of
competitiveness.
3.5.2. Paper 2
Robertson, J., McCarthy, I. P., & Pitt, L. (2019). Leveraging Social Capital in University-
Industry Knowledge Transfer Strategies: A Comparative Positioning Framework. Knowledge
Management Research & Practice, 17(4), 461-472.
Journal: Knowledge Management Research & Practice
Status: Published
Paper 2 answers Research Question 2: How does social capital impact the competitive
advantage of ecosystems?
The findings from paper 1 highlighted that further exploration of the role of social networks
within an entrepreneurial ecosystem and the leveraging of social capital among the various
network members would present timely insights. Based on the findings from paper 1, it was
highlighted that this would be particularly relevant in times of limited resources and great
uncertainty, especially when a high degree of heterogeneity is present among the members
within the ecosystem. In addition, public sector involvement and interaction clusters
comprising universities and industry, was highlighted as pertinent drivers of new knowledge
creation and innovative outcomes ─ all identified as drivers of competitiveness in
entrepreneurial ecosystems.
To further explore these newly identified or under researched areas, and address the underlying
research problem of how competitive advantage is achieved through an ecosystem approach in
industrial marketing, paper 2 focused on the knowledge transfer between university-industry
actors as a representation of innovation ecosystems (Cai et al., 2019; Heaton et al., 2019).
Coupled with this, the paper additionally aimed to heed recent calls for more strategic analysis
of how social capital is leveraged across regions with organizational differences and goals (de
Wit-de Vries et al., 2018; Gulati et al., 2000) – especially in the context of university-industry
knowledge transfer (Bruneel et al., 2010; Maietta, 2015; Perkmann et al., 2013). The region as
an institutional environment for strategic advantage is well documented (Ferreira et al., 2013),
as is the strategic leveraging of knowledge in university-industry partnerships (Carayannis et
al., 2000). However, the impact of social capital on knowledge transfer, which serves as a
strategic driver of competitive advantage within university-industry partnerships as innovation
ecosystems, is still uncharted territory.
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The structure of the paper comprised three phases. The first phase entailed using three social
capital dimensions and their accompanying sub-dimensions, as originally proposed by
Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998) and refined by Inkpen and Tsang (2005), as guideline to
distinguish between the various social capital dimensions that are leveraged during the process
of university-industry knowledge transfer across three regions. Each of these regions represent
countries at different stages of development: a developed region (Canada), a transition region
(Malta), and a developing region (South Africa). The intent of the knowledge transfer activity
was then probed and elucidated in more detail in the second phase, to create clarity regarding
its competitive and strategic imperative ─ either gaining new knowledge (appropriating
strategy), or leveraging existing knowledge (leveraging strategy). Consequently, the final
phase encompassed the development of a social capital university-industry knowledge transfer
framework to guide actors that form part of this innovation ecosystem type to better align their
knowledge strategy with their respective competitive imperative.
3.5.3. Paper 3
Robertson, J., Caruana, A., & Ferreira, C. Innovation Performance: The Effect of Knowledge-
Based Dynamic Capabilities in Cross-Country Innovation Ecosystems
Journal: International Business Review
Status: Under review
Paper 3 answers Research Question 3: How do dynamic capabilities impact the competitive
advantage of ecosystems?
Paper 2 highlighted that social capital provides a foundation for describing and measuring the
cooperative reciprocity of associations in ecosystems. The findings of paper 2 furthermore also
stressed the organizational importance and competitive advantage inherent in the knowledge
sharing capabilities embedded within these interdependent organizational hyper-networks. The
member interaction facilitates the creation and maintenance of embedded assets, as it is “the
aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable
network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition”
(Bourdieu, 1986, p.248), that leads to competitive advantage.
Following this notion, paper 3 was built on the premise that organizational hyper-networks’
ability to achieve market success is dependent on the efforts of other innovators in its
environment (Aarikka-Stenroos & Ritala, 2017). This environment acts as an innovation
ecosystem consisting of inter- and codependent relationships between the members of the
ecosystem (Moore, 1993). Knowledge Based Dynamic Capabilities (KBDC) are said to enable
the exploration of organizational abilities to generate, combine, and acquire knowledge
resources to deal with environmental dynamics for innovative market success (Beuter et al.,
2019; Denford, 2013). However, few studies have empirically examined the link between
KBDC and innovation performance (Beuter et al., 2019; Cheng et al., 2016; Han & Li, 2015;
Zheng et al., 2011), and there are mounting calls to better understand how KBDC impact
65
innovation performance in the context of innovation ecosystems (Andreeva & Kianto, 2011;
Malerba & McKelvey, 2020; Nunn, 2019).
To address these gaps, paper 3 first reviewed the extant literature pertaining to innovation
performance and the role of knowledge and KBDC. Although not yet extensively researched,
a Web of Science database search provided 11 research articles that have been published with
KBDC as the focal topic. This allowed for a review of the extant literature to more clearly
conceptualize KBDC and to identify gaps in the theory and literature. In essence, KBDC
expands on the role of knowledge as a unique source of competitive advantage and promotes
a knowledge-based perspective of dynamic capabilities (Zheng et al., 2011). This facilitated
the conceptualization of KBDC as consisting of four elements, namely knowledge creation,
knowledge diffusion, knowledge absorption, and knowledge impact. Hypotheses were then
developed that linked these four elements to innovation performance in an innovation
ecosystem context. From a theoretical perspective, RBV and dynamic capabilities were then
discussed as the underpinning theoretical framework for the study. Secondary data, collected
from the Global Innovation Index 2019 was then collected and analyzed, using SmartPLS. The
paper concludes with the development of an innovation ecosystem framework, centered around
a knowledge based dynamic capabilities’ approach. The framework employed the ecosystem
categorization approach for B2B-research, as proposed by Aarikka-Stenroos and Ritala (2017),
which considers the interaction between actors in the ecosystem, as well as the structural
dynamics of the ecosystem ─ either encouraging change and renewal for market disruption, or
creating stability and symbiosis through institutionalization of the ecosystem.
3.5.4. Paper 4
Robertson, J. Competition in Knowledge Ecosystems: A Theory Elaboration Approach Using

a Case Study
Journal: Sustainability
Status: Published
Paper 4 answers Research Question 4: How do resource- and capability-based theories explain
competition in ecosystems?
Paper 3 showed that knowledge creation relates to the development of new solutions and
capabilities within the innovation ecosystem, which allows for the transformation of
knowledge into innovation outcomes or processes for commercial gain. As such, it is regarded
as a strategic and dynamic resource capability, that is closely linked to competitive advantage.
Knowledge creation also has the strongest impact on innovation performance across all KBDC
and is also the strongest predictor of innovation performance, as per paper 3. This raises some
questions, though – where does the knowledge originate from and what contributes to the
competitive creation of primary knowledge?
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As a starting point, it is proposed that a dynamic, hypercompetitive, global economy,
technological advances, unpredictable customers and competitors, and blurring industry
boundaries (Hunt & Madhavaram, 2020; Velu, 2015), are compelling scholars and practitioners
to take stock and reevaluate strategic imperatives. This strategic reassessment coincides with a
changing perspective on the dynamics of competition. As per paper 3, knowledge is deemed a
central and strategic asset in developing a competitive edge (Penrose, 2009; Prahalad & Hamel,
1990; Yu et al., 2017), and knowledge ecosystems underscore the participatory process among
ecosystem actors to create, explore, and use a shared knowledge base for the benefit of all
actors (Järvi et al., 2018). Participation in the ecosystem also enables actors to purpose the
primary acquired knowledge into new knowledge for commercialization of products or
services, or as a means to discover new business models or processes which they would not
have been able to do if relying on individual competences only (Clarysse et al., 2014).
Researchers have called for a deepened theoretical understanding of the strategic orientation in
these ecosystems to assess its pertinence to marketing and sustainable enterprise development.
These calls consider whether ecosystems follow an externally-focused or internally-focused
strategic approach (Velu, 2015), and what the relative importance of dynamic, responsive or
adaptive capabilities are in converting knowledge-related insights into value-creating
advantage (Whitler & Puto, 2020). With a marked reprioritization of marketing strategy on the
academic agenda (Hunt & Madhavaran, 2020), and the emergence of knowledge ecosystems
as vehicles for knowledge-creating advantage with which to navigate a complex and
competitive marketplace (Järvi et al., 2018), this paper explores how competition works in
knowledge ecosystems.
Very little research has been conducted in this area to date (Thomas & Autio, 2020). As such,
the paper follows a theory elaboration approach, which entails “specifying constructs, relations,
and processes at the conceptual level and assessing the fit of those relations empirically” (Van
Maanen et al., 2007, p. 1146). The objectives of this paper are threefold. First, three streams of
strategic thought that grapple with the fast-changing contemporary competitive landscape are
reviewed. These are the resource-advantage theory (Hunt & Morgan, 1995), the dynamic
capabilities framework (Teece et al., 1997), and the adaptive marketing capabilities perspective
(Day, 2011; 2014). These streams of strategy converge around the notion that “in today's
dynamic, hypercompetitive, global economy, strategy must focus on firms’ constantly
renewing themselves in the marketplace” (Hunt & Madhavaram, 2020, p. 129). The purpose
of the review is to assess and compare how these strategy streams and its associated
foundational perspectives can explain the dynamics of competition in knowledge ecosystems.
Second, the concept and characteristics of knowledge ecosystems are conceptualized. Finally,
a case study of a knowledge ecosystem is presented, to empirically assess how competition
works in knowledge ecosystems, focusing on the perspective of a keystone actor.
This Chapter addressed the overarching research methodology and specific procedures
followed to address the research problem and accompanying research questions of this
67
dissertation. The Chapter highlighted previous research strategies that have been employed to
study competitive advantage and ecosystems in peer-reviewed academic marketing journals
over the past five years. A predominantly empirical research strategy is followed, consisting of
three papers with a quantitative, descriptive research design, and one paper with a qualitative,
exploratory research design.
Paper 1 makes use of an empirical, quantitative research approach, employing an exploratory

research design to conduct a bibliographic analysis, using secondary data. Paper 2 also employs
an empirical, quantitative research approach, but with a descriptive research design, which
makes use of comparative dimensional scoring of secondary data, to address the research
question. Similar to paper 2, paper 3 uses an empirical, quantitative research approach, with a
descriptive research design, analyzing secondary data using PLS-SEM as the research method.
Finally, paper 4 is qualitative in its research approach, using an exploratory research design by
means of a single in-depth case study, using primary data.
Finally, an overview and description of the structure of the four research questions and
accompanying papers that comprise this dissertation were presented. Each respective paper
addresses a particular research question, which has been derived from the overarching research
problem of this dissertation: How is competitive advantage achieved through an ecosystem
approach in industrial marketing? A summary of the findings is presented in the next Chapter.
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CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS
4.1. Introduction
Based on the central research problem of this dissertation: How is competitive advantage
achieved through an ecosystem approach in industrial marketing? this Chapter provides an
overview of the findings, as well as key theoretical contributions and managerial implications
emanating from the research questions. The findings from the four respective research
questions, as well as the accompanying papers, are presented. In addition, the limitations of the
research are noted and future suggested areas of research are provided.
4.2. Findings: Research Question 1
The first research question addressed in this dissertation sought to outline what the drivers of
competitiveness are, using a network analysis approach to ecosystems. The findings from this
research question, addressed in paper 1, are grouped into three distinct categories. First, the
growth, breadth, and depth of entrepreneurial ecosystems literature was reviewed and analyzed.
Based on the results of the literature review and, in comparison to its overall development, the
number of articles published in the field of entrepreneurial ecosystems show significant growth
over the past five years (Figure 8). This is corroborated with the recent increase in interest in
the research domain in recent years, as well as the concomitant diffusion of the concept to other
disciplines with associated interests (Ács et al. 2017).
Figure 8: Number of annual published articles on entrepreneurial ecosystems between 1995 to

2019
69
In total, 431 published articles were cited 3,089 times, with an average of 7.17 citations per
article, averaging a total of 123.56 citations for the research domain per year. In total, these
431 published articles comprised 974 different authors, from 622 distinct institutions,
representing 63 different countries.
Based on the Web of Science categories (Figure 9), the top represented fields that contribute
to the literature on entrepreneurial ecosystems were Management, Business, and Economics.
In addition, Table 10 shows the ten journals in which most of the papers on the search term
appeared. As evidenced by the chart, the five journals in which most papers on the topic of
entrepreneurial ecosystems have been published was Small Business Economics (30 articles),
Journal of Technology Transfer (23 articles), European Planning Studies (13 articles),
Technological Forecasting and Social Change (11 articles), and Journal of Enterprising
Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy (10 articles). These five journals
accounted for 20,2% of the total publications, with the remainder of the list comprising a
relatively diverse list of journals. As can be seen from Figure 8, entrepreneurial ecosystems are
regarded as a multi-disciplinary phenomenon which reaches and resonates beyond
entrepreneurship and economics, to include industrial engineering, geography, as well as
education research.
Figure 9: Top ten Web of Science categories in which published articles on entrepreneurial
ecosystems appear between 1995-2019
70
Table 6: Journals with most published articles on entrepreneurial ecosystems (n=431)
Journal Record Count Percentage of Total
Small Business Economics 30 6,96%
Journal of Technology Transfer 23 5,34%
European Planning Studies 13 3,02%
Technological Forecasting and Social Change 11 2,55%
Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and 10 2,32%

Places in the Global Economy
Entrepreneurship and Regional Development 9 2,09%
Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal 8 1,86%
International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior 7 1,62%

Research
Industry and Higher Education 6 1,39%
Research Policy 6 1,39%
The most cited article was published in Research Policy in 2014, by authors Autio, Kenney,
Mustar, Siegel, and Wright, titled “Entrepreneurial innovation: the importance of context”. The
three most cited articles were all published in the last five years and jointly represent 16,5% of
the total citations on the search term on the Web of Science (Table 7). It is interesting to note
that there is a bias towards articles published in business journals, with four of the top ten cited
articles published in journals relating to the business research domain.
Table 7: Ten most cited research articles between 1995 and 2019 using “entrepreneurial
ecosystem” as search term on Web of Science (n=431)
Rank Research Article Web of Google

Science Scholar
Citations Citations
1 Autio, E., Kenney, M., Mustar, P., Siegel, D. and Wright, 207 560
M., 2014. Entrepreneurial innovation: The importance of
context. Research Policy, 43(7), pp.1097-1108.
2 Stam, E., 2015. Entrepreneurial ecosystems and regional 162 503

policy: a sympathetic critique. European Planning
Studies, 23(9), pp.1759-1769.
71
3 Spigel, B., 2017. The relational organization of 142 449
entrepreneurial ecosystems. Entrepreneurship Theory and
Practice, 41(1), pp.49-72.
4 Andreev, S., Galinina, O., Pyattaev, A., Gerasimenko, M., 101 183
Tirronen, T., Torsner, J., Sachs, J., Dohler, M. and
Koucheryavy, Y., 2015. Understanding the IoT
connectivity landscape: a contemporary M2M radio
technology roadmap. IEEE Communications Magazine,
53(9), pp.32-40.
5 Zahra, S.A. and Nambisan, S., 2012. Entrepreneurship 76 259
and strategic thinking in business ecosystems. Business
Horizons, 55(3), pp.219-229.
6 Letaifa, S.B. and Rabeau, Y., 2013. Too close to 71 167
collaborate? How geographic proximity could impede
entrepreneurship and innovation. Journal of Business
Research, 66(10), pp.2071-2078.
7 Zander, I., McDougall-Covin, P. and Rose, E.L., 2015. 68 142
Born globals and international business: Evolution of a
field of research. Journal of International Business
Studies, 46(1), pp.27-35.
8 Pitelis, C., 2012. Clusters, entrepreneurial ecosystem co- 61 153
creation, and appropriability: a conceptual framework.
Industrial and Corporate Change, 21(6), pp.1359-1388.
9 Habbershon, T.G., 2006. Commentary: A framework for 57 161

managing the familiness and agency advantages in family
firms. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 30(6),
pp.879-886.
10 Mack, E. and Mayer, H., 2016. The evolutionary 52 141

dynamics of entrepreneurial ecosystems. Urban Studies,
53(10), pp.2118-2133.
Second, the leading authors, institutions and countries were analyzed using the bibliographic
analysis tool, VOSviewer, to graphically map the networked relationships, as present in the
extant entrepreneurial ecosystems literature. Of the 974 authors in the dataset, Roundy, with
nine articles, was the most productive (accounting for 2% of all published articles), followed
by Carayannis and Audretsch, respectively, with five articles each. The authors’ geographical
distribution, as per their affiliated institutions and countries was also analyzed. The largest
number of articles were authored by researchers from the University of North Carolina,
University of Cambridge, and Indiana University (with 16, 13, and 13 associated articles,
respectively), indicating that most articles were authored by researchers with institution
affiliations in the USA (162 associated articles). Closer examination indicated that institutions
based in the USA and UK (England and Scotland) were dominant in terms of their influence
72
in the research domain of entrepreneurial ecosystems and related determinants, using citation
as a proxy. This signals that findings should be contextualized within the institutional and
regional scope of the representative environments, with particular emphasis on issues relating
to policy development and governmental initiatives.
Third, a network map of the most prominent and frequently co-occurring keywords was
graphically generated using VOSviewer, clearly indicating keyword network clusters that serve
as associated determinants of entrepreneurial ecosystem drivers of competitiveness. In
interpreting the VOSviewer map, the lines between the nodes indicate networked links between
the keywords, with the default setting being to show the 500 strongest links in the dataset
(Colavizza et al., 2018). The distance between the respective nodes is an indication of how
related they are. In other words, the closer two nodes are, the closer related they are in terms
of citation links (Van Eck & Waltman, 2018). To be included in the map, a word had to appear
a minimum of twenty times in all the documents combined. Of the 2015 keywords that
appeared in the 431 research articles, twenty-three words met the cut-off. A network map of
these terms and their co-occurrence and interaction in academic journals appears in Figure 10.
Figure 10: Most commonly occurring keywords on entrepreneurial ecosystems (1995 to 2019)
Perhaps not surprising, the word innovation was shown to be the most commonly-appearing
word, with the words entrepreneurship, performance, knowledge and entrepreneurial
73
ecosystems rounding out the top five most common words in the research articles literature.
The network map shows that there are three differentiable keyword clusters: the green cluster,
which relates to innovation, strategy, technology, industry, university, and associated
determinants within the literature; the blue cluster, which encompasses words like
entrepreneurship, business, and management; and finally, the red cluster which links nodes
that are connected through words like entrepreneurial ecosystems, knowledge, policy,
networks, and growth. Key themes in this area thus seem to revolve around three main streams:
innovation (linked to performance, technology, university and industry), entrepreneurship
(with a focus on an ecosystem, management and business), and knowledge (with an emphasis
on growth, policy and networks).
Research question number 2 sought to address how social capital impacts the competitive
advantage of ecosystems. This research question was addressed in paper 2. Following the
keyword links and nodes identified as networked clusters acting as drivers of competitiveness
in entrepreneurial ecosystems in paper 1, paper 2 focused on the one cluster encompassing
innovation, strategy, industry, and university interaction, to gauge how this impacts the
competitive advantage of ecosystems. Focused on three particular objectives, the paper
proposed a link between social capital and knowledge transfer strategies, by illustrating how it
impacts the competitive positioning of university-industry partnerships as representative of an
innovation ecosystem.
The first objective of the paper sought to assess the respective social capital dimensions
leveraged during the process of university-industry knowledge transfer. As a starting point, the
knowledge strategy typology by von Krogh et al. (2001) was used to determine which
knowledge transfer strategy the university-industry partnerships employed. The typology
delineates knowledge transfer based on two structural categories: knowledge domain (existing
knowledge or new knowledge), and knowledge process (knowledge transfer or knowledge
creation). Within the process of knowledge transfer, the transfer of existing knowledge is
termed a leveraging strategy, while the transfer of new knowledge is described as the
appropriating strategy. Figure 11 provides a visual representation of the two knowledge
transfer strategy delineations. The leveraging strategy is set forward from existing knowledge
domains and focuses on transferring knowledge to the various actors within an ecosystem to
allow for faster innovation, achieving efficiency and flexing resource capabilities. The
appropriating strategy is predominantly externally oriented, as the key challenge is to construct
a new knowledge domain by channeling knowledge transfer from outside of the ecosystem and
appropriate it to a new internal domain.
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Figure 11: Knowledge transfer strategy delineation, as adapted from von Krogh et al. (2001)
Using the knowledge strategy typology as proposed by von Krogh et al. (2001), existing studies
relating to university-industry partnerships from the previously identified three regions were
iteratively analyzed to explore whether they contained the variables needed to address the
research question. Secondary data, as found in previous studies that related to each region, was
used as data sources. Operational definitions of the variables in each of the studies were first
established to ensure that these were aligned with the objectives of this study. The secondary
data were analyzed and grouped to assess the knowledge transfer strategy which these
university-industry partnerships employed. Next, the level of social capital dimensions present
in each of the various country-specific university-industry knowledge transfer partnerships was
also analyzed. Three social capital dimensions and their accompanying sub-dimensions, as
originally proposed by Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998) and refined by Inkpen and Tsang (2005)
were used as a guideline for this purpose. Table 8 provides an overview of the results.
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Table 8: An overview of social capital dimensions present
Social Capital Developed Region Transition Region Developing Region

Dimensions (Canada) (Malta) (South Africa)
Structural
Strong and closely-

knit network ties, due Inter-member ties are
Strong network ties,
to interconnectivity weak and interaction
Network ties both formal and
of network members is relatively low and
informal.
to formal University disconnected.
Research Parks.
Hierarchical and
bureaucratic, runs the
Bureaucratic,
Network Systems- and risk of high density,
impedes and restricts
configuration structure focused. which may inhibit the
knowledge transfer.
ease of knowledge
transfer.
High rate of network

Network High rate of network High rate of network instability, due to
stability stability. stability. high level of political
uncertainty.
Relational
High level of trust in

established
Trust relationship
relationships, but
managed through
Strong trust reluctant to form new
Trust clearly defined roles
relationships. trust-based
with accompanying
relationships based
accountabilities.
on perceived threat
of opportunism.
Cognitive
Goals are clearly Goals are wide- Goals are both

defined and aligned, ranging and run the compatible and
Shared goals
but often not risk of mostly mutually
enforced. incompatibility. shared.
Mostly cultural
Culture of High level of cultural tolerance, but
Shared culture
compatibility. compatibility. declining research
culture.
Overall Social
High Medium to High Medium to Low
Capital Score
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From a social capital dimension perspective, as can be seen in Table 8, university-industry
knowledge transfer partnerships in Canada and Malta consist of strong and close-knit network
ties, with Canada showing evidence of a systems and structure focus in their network
configuration. Both Malta and South Africa show hierarchical and bureaucratic network
configurations, which may restrict and inhibit the ease of knowledge transfer. Canada and
Malta possess a high rate of network stability, with South Africa, in contrast, exhibiting a high
rate of network instability, ascribed to the uncertain political climate. The relational dimension
was found to mostly be built on strong trust relationships for all three countries, with university-
industry knowledge transfer partnerships in South Africa at times being under threat due to the
perception of potential opportunism from one of the partners in the relationship. The cognitive
sub-dimensions of shared goals and culture show varying results, with university-industry
partnerships in Canada displaying alignment, yet the goals are not always accomplished or
realized. University-industry knowledge transfer partnerships in Malta have wide-ranging and
at times incompatible goals, with South Africa having mostly compatible and mutually shared
goals. Cultural compatibility is shared in both Canada and Malta, with South Africa exhibiting
a tolerant culture, yet weakening research culture.
The second objective centered on the establishing intent of the knowledge transfer activity to
better understand the strategic imperative: either gaining new knowledge (appropriating
strategy), or leveraging existing knowledge (leveraging strategy). Linked to this objective, the
third objective related to the development of a social capital university-industry knowledge
transfer framework. This had the aim of guiding innovation ecosystem actors to better align
their knowledge strategy with their respective competitive imperative. To address both
objective two and three, the developed social capital university-industry knowledge transfer
framework (Figure 12), plots the respective regional countries’ knowledge transfer strategies,
as well as their social capital dimension score (as per Table 8) on a two by two matrix.
Figure 12: Social capital university-industry knowledge transfer framework
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The plot positioning on the horizontal line represents the predominant knowledge transfer
strategy employed, while the vertical positioning denotes the level of social capital present
within the university- industry knowledge transfer partnerships. The results, as illustrated in
Figure 12, indicate that university-industry partnerships in Canada, situated in a developed
region, predominantly employ an appropriating knowledge transfer strategy for the purpose of
creating and sharing new knowledge. In terms of the level of social capital present within the
university-industry knowledge transfer activities, Canada shows to utilize a high level of social
capital within these processes of exchange. Canada is thus situated in the first quadrant of the
matrix. As a country situated in a region in transition, Malta is plotted in the second quadrant
of the matrix, with the results indicating that university-industry knowledge transfer
partnerships in Malta most often rely on a leveraging strategy. With relatively low levels of
social capital displayed in university-industry knowledge transfer activities in South Africa,
the results show that the partnerships most often centre around the appropriation of new
knowledge, with the country being plotted in the fourth quadrant.
The third research question asked how dynamic capabilities impact the competitive advantage
of ecosystems? This question was addressed in paper 3 and specifically focused on competitive
advantage between innovation ecosystems. Drawing from the findings as per research question
2, knowledge-related factors were explored to assess their effect on innovation performance
between innovation ecosystems. Using a RBV view, flexing the lens of dynamic capabilities
in particular, two research objectives guided the inquiry. The first objective sought to identify
the knowledge-related constructs that encompass KBDC in an innovation ecosystem, while the
second objective centered on determining the role the identified KBDC constructs play as
drivers of innovation performance across diverse economic markets.
To address the first objective, a comprehensive review of the literature was conducted, which
led to the conceptualization of KBDC to encompass the components of knowledge creation,
knowledge diffusion, knowledge absorption, and knowledge impact. Knowledge creation is
widely acknowledged as a key construct of KBDC (Faccin et al., 2019), with close ties to
innovative performance outcomes. Andreeva and Kianto (2011, p. 1010) define knowledge
creation as the “ability to develop new and useful ideas and solutions”, relating to
organizational activities, new products or services, technological processes and managerial
procedures (Nonaka, 1991; Un & Cuervo-Cazurra, 2004). As a focal part of the innovation
process (Nonaka et al., 2014; Quintane et al., 2011), thriving innovation ecosystems are
characterized by knowledge creation (Bramwell et al., 2012).
Within an innovation ecosystem, a clear understanding of the diffusion of knowledge is

fundamentally important from an economic perspective, as the ease with which diffusion
occurs directly affects economic growth (Grossman & Helpman, 1991). Knowledge diffusion
also holds implications for firm, regional and national technology strategies, technology
transfer policies, as well as incoming and outgoing investment (Singh, 2008). The diffusion of
knowledge is not a homogeneously distributed process across all potential adopters (Klarl,
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2014). Research shows that induced knowledge spillovers in certain specialized sectors,
markets and countries lead to enhanced capabilities for knowledge diffusion in those
environments (Boschma & Frenken, 2011; Lundvall, 2007). Capello and Varga (2013) assert
that proximity-related advantages between innovating partners, as can often be found in
innovation ecosystems, would contribute to the increased creation and diffusion of knowledge,
and lead to enhanced innovation performance.
Closely-linked with knowledge diffusion, knowledge absorption is viewed as a KBDC in that

it recognizes the importance of new knowledge and its assimilation and application for
commercial purposes, to increase the capacity for innovation (Cohen & Levinthal, 1990; Faccin
et al., 2019). In the innovation ecosystem, knowledge absorption entails the process of
managing the acquisition and exploitation of external knowledge for internal knowledge
application (Zheng et al., 2011). For knowledge to have an impact, it has to go through a
process of integration, synthesis, refinement, management, and importantly ─ market
implementation. Knowledge impact represents this process of implementation, which
necessitates collaborative effort and inclusion of entities both internal and external to an
organization (Nonaka et al., 2014).
To determine what role the identified KBDC constructs play as drivers of innovation
performance across diverse economic markets as per the second objective, the identified
KBDC components were first operationalized. Thereafter, hypotheses were developed,
grounded in the RBV and dynamic capabilities frameworks.
4.4.1. Knowledge Creation and Innovation Performance
As a dynamic capability, knowledge creation competencies promote new thinking and

capabilities within networked environments (Nonaka et al., 2000), including innovation
ecosystems (Kazadi et al., 2016). Furthermore, knowledge creation has been shown to be
closely linked with an organization’s competitive advantage (Gupta et al., 2016), and is
regarded as an output indicator of innovation performance (Andreeva & Kianto, 2011). In light
of the above, it is hypothesized:
H1: There is a positive relationship between knowledge creation and innovation

performance in an innovation ecosystem.
4.4.2. Knowledge Diffusion and Innovation Performance
In line with the diffusion of innovations theory (Rogers, 1962), knowledge diffusion refers to
the rate at which newly created technological content and intellectual property spreads for
eventual adoption (Klarl, 2014). Innovation performance is thus regarded as an outcome of
knowledge diffusion. Therefore:
H2: There is a positive relationship between knowledge diffusion and innovation

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4.4.3. Knowledge Absorption and Innovation Performance
Knowledge absorption often leads to new knowledge creation, which in turn improves the
ability to gain and sustain competitive advantage (Zahra & George, 2002) of innovation
performance. Knowledge absorption is dependent on the ability of innovation ecosystem
members to acquire, absorb, and apply often external knowledge from outside the boundaries
of its own entities. These activities make it possible for the firm to redeploy these resources as
new products, services, processes or systems. In light of the above, it is hypothesized:
H3: There is a positive relationship between knowledge absorption and innovation

4.4.4. Knowledge Impact and Innovation Performance
Knowledge impact represents the effect that the integration and combination of knowledge-
based innovation activities has at both a micro- and a macroeconomic level. As an output
indicator, the relationship between knowledge impact and innovation performance seems
intuitively connected. From an innovation ecosystem perspective, the accurate measurement
of knowledge impact is a budding area of research which the academic literature has identified
as not yet sufficiently investigated (Faccin et al., 2019; Santoro et al., 2018). Therefore:
H4: There is a positive relationship between knowledge impact and innovation

The impact of knowledge is inextricably reliant on new knowledge being created (Santoro et
al., 2018) and the different types of knowledge are known to be interlinked. Therefore, we
further hypothesize the following mediated relationships:
H5a: The relationship between knowledge diffusion and innovation performance is

mediated by knowledge creation.
H5b: The relationship between knowledge absorption and innovation performance is

mediated by knowledge diffusion.
H5c: The relationship between knowledge impact and innovation performance is

mediated by knowledge creation.
The hypotheses described above are represented in the research model in Figure 13.
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Figure 13: Research model and hypotheses
Based on partial least squares analysis, using SmartPLS, Table 9 provides an overview of the
significance of the hypothesized paths.
Table 9: Results of PLS analysis

Hypothesis Path β t-statistic Significance Results
Knowledge creation🡪
H1 0.54 11.65 0.00** Supported
Innovation performance
Knowledge diffusion 🡪
H2 0.20 2.84 0.00** Supported
Knowledge absorption 🡪
H3 0.13 1.57 0.12ns Not supported
Knowledge impact 🡪
H4 0.20 5.00 0.00** Supported
Knowledge diffusion 🡪
H5a 0.55 7.02 0.00** Supported
Knowledge creation
Knowledge absorption 🡪
H5b 0.83 29.20 0.00** Supported
Knowledge diffusion
Knowledge impact 🡪
H5c 0.28 4.49 0.00** Supported
Knowledge creation
** Significant at 1% level of significance.
ns = not significant.
With the exception of H3, all path coefficients yielded statistically significant results (p < 0.00)
– Table 9. The results suggest that three of the KBDC, namely knowledge creation, knowledge
diffusion and knowledge impact, are significant drivers of innovation performance. In terms of
mediating relationships, knowledge diffusion fully mediates the relationship between
knowledge absorption and innovation performance, while knowledge creation is found to be a
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partial mediator of the relationship between knowledge diffusion and innovation performance,
as well as knowledge impact and innovation performance. An examination of the standardized
coefficients provides insight into the strongest driver of innovation performance allowing for
the indicators to be ranked. Knowledge creation is the strongest driver of innovation
performance, followed by knowledge diffusion and knowledge impact, which are of equal
importance.
Eisenhardt and Martin (2000) assert that although there are some commonalities in how
dynamic capabilities are flexed across different organizations, they are mostly idiosyncratically
developed and deployed. Zheng et al. (2011) also propose that since the level and form of
dynamic capabilities can be quite different across different environments, it would be prudent
to consider how this may lead to distinctively differing innovation performances. It is thus
posited that this would be similar across different innovation ecosystems. Therefore, the
relationships were also comparatively tested across developed, transition and developing
economies. Accordingly, the assessment sought to examine which of the four capabilities
would be the most important driver of innovation performance within the respective market
economy innovation ecosystems.
The results of the PLS path analysis suggest that in developed economies, knowledge creation
is the strongest predictor of innovation performance, while in transition economies, knowledge
absorption is the strongest predictor of innovation performance, followed by knowledge
impact. In developing economies, knowledge creation is the strongest predictor of innovation
performance, followed by knowledge diffusion and knowledge impact.
In summary, four knowledge-related capabilities, namely knowledge creation, knowledge

diffusion, knowledge absorption, and knowledge impact, are respectively identified as input-
output indicators of innovation performance in innovation ecosystems. Aligned to the extant
understanding of RBV and dynamic capabilities, these components represent knowledge-based
capabilities which would serve to enable innovation activities, provide competitive advantage,
and lead to enhanced innovation performance when leveraged within innovation ecosystems.
Operationally, the four components comprise knowledge dimensions that span both discrete
innovation outcomes (e.g., product, service, scientific publication), as well as process-based
innovative capabilities (e.g., improved high-tech or operational processes) that lead to
economic market success. Innovation ecosystems are presumed to possess heterogeneous
knowledge bases and differ by context (Autio & Thomas, 2014), thereby necessitating
comparative analysis.
In terms of the comparative importance of KBDC for innovation performance between

innovation ecosystems, the ecosystem categorization approach for B2B-research (Aarikka-
Stenroos & Ritala, 2017) was used as reference, which proposes that KBDC drives innovation
performance and competitive advantage goals by aligning to a particular focused approach. An
interaction focus concentrates on interactions between customers, stakeholders and other actors
in the ecosystem. These are fundamental components that facilitate market structure and
organizing for value creation through innovation. A system dynamics focus is concerned with
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the structural dynamics of the ecosystem to either encourage change and renewal for market
disruption, or create stability and symbiosis through a process of institutionalization. Figure 14
provides an illustrative representation of how this applies to KBDC in an innovation context,
highlighting its pertinence to innovation performance and competitive advantage.
Figure 14: Innovation ecosystem framework centered around a knowledge-based dynamic

capabilities’ approach
Knowledge creation relates to the development of new solutions and capabilities within the
innovation ecosystem that allows the transformation of knowledge into innovation outcomes
or processes for commercial gain. It is seen as a strategic and dynamic resource capability, that
is closely linked to competitive advantage. Based on the results of this research, knowledge
creation has the strongest impact on innovation performance across all KBDC. Knowledge
creation is also the strongest predictor of innovation performance in developed and developing
economies. In relation to all components of KBDC, knowledge creation also acts as a partial
mediator and conduit to facilitate the diffusion and impact of knowledge for overall innovation
performance in the innovation ecosystem.
As inferred from the literature, knowledge diffusion is markedly connected with the pursuit of
economic growth, as evidenced by the fact that it is only a strong predictor of innovation
performance in developing economies. From a dynamic capabilities viewpoint, it refers to the
rate at which newly created knowledge disperses through the greater ecosystem for adoption
and is seen as a significant indicator of innovation performance. In an innovation ecosystem,
knowledge diffusion would facilitate the flow and absorption of knowledge and knowledge
spillovers, which advances innovation exports and affects competitive advantage.
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The capability to sense, seize and transform knowledge for competitive advantage is
represented by knowledge absorption. It necessitates a high level of interaction and networked
engagement within an innovation ecosystem, as it entails the assimilation of both internal and
external knowledge. Although the results indicate that knowledge absorption is not a
significant indicator of innovation performance, it indirectly determines innovation
performance through knowledge diffusion in a fully mediated relationship. It is the strongest
predictor of innovation performance in transition economies, which may indicate that these
economies dynamically require external input in order to transform content into innovation
outcomes.
Knowledge impact symbolizes the ripple effect of utilized knowledge for innovation activities
in the micro- and macro-economic environment. As a KBDC it has been found to be a
significant indicator of innovation performance. It is surprising that the results indicate that
knowledge impact does not act as a strong driver of innovation performance in developed
economies. However, although not the strongest driver, knowledge impact does show to be an
important driver of innovation performance in transition and developing economies.
The final research question to address the overall research problem focused on exploring how
resource- and capability-based theories can explain competition in ecosystems, focusing on
knowledge ecosystems in particular. To explore how competition works within a knowledge
ecosystem, a case study of a university-based Institute of Strategic Marketing (UCT Liberty
ISM), the keystone actor in a knowledge ecosystem, was conducted. First, the literature-
identified organizational factors of an ecosystem are used as a structure to present the results.
These factors relate to the ecosystem actors, the nature of their activities, the organizational
alignment of the knowledge ecosystem, as well as ecosystem-level artifacts or output.
Thereafter, the findings are further laid bare by contextually relating it to extant theoretical
perspectives on strategic choice and competition.
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4.5.1. Findings Based on Ecosystem Factors
Table 10: Overview of case study findings, based on ecosystem factors and knowledge
ecosystem characteristics as strategic determinants of how competition works
Factor Characteristic Strategic Determinants

● Multiple networked actors encompassing two main
categories: contributors (exchange, explore, build
central knowledge base) and benefit members (exploit
knowledge base for further innovation or commercial
Network oriented
purposes)
● Actors are specialized, representing heterogeneous
knowledge bases, which contributes to sustained
Actors Diverse
knowledge exploration with potential for broad
application
● Actors are often embedded in other, different
Connected
ecosystems, e.g., business, innovation, or
entrepreneurial ecosystems, which can expedite flow
and spillover of knowledge for value-adding
advantage
● Primarily focused on external knowledge exploration
over a 12 to 18-month period for the purposes of
Externally focused
commercial knowledge exploitation
● Vulnerabilities that relate to continuous reliance on
external funding and extensive time resources
required to fulfill value proposition
Activities
● University-affiliation key interdependency to access
Interdependency
resources
● Keystone actor activities are mainly cooperative
Cooperative and
among marketing fraternity that they serve; actor
coopetitive
activities are at times coopetitive to benefit whole
ecosystem
● Ecosystem relationships and capacities are coevolving
Dynamic
and dynamic, although it takes time and intentionality
● Keystone actor mostly determines direction of the
Emergent
Alignment knowledge ecosystem—emergent realignment to
environmental changes regarded as important but not
mandatory for advantage
Influence based
● University-affiliation signals and affirms legitimacy
● Explored knowledge provides broad and general
Knowledge knowledge repository for all ecosystem members to
Artifact
exploration adapt, modify, and exploit for own contexts and
purposes—vital for competitiveness
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4.5.1.1. Actors
The actors that encompass the knowledge ecosystem structure and organization of the UCT
Liberty ISM, can be divided into two categories. The first category relates to the entities,
organizations and individuals that contribute to the exchange, exploration and building of the
central knowledge base for shared use (contributors). The second refers to members of the
ecosystem who primarily belong to the ecosystem for the purposes of using the shared
knowledge base for further innovation, market or technological development (benefit
members). The two categories are not necessarily mutually exclusive and contributors can
become benefit members and vice versa. It is important to differentiate between the two
categories, as each uniquely contributes to the ecosystem. The actors also vary in terms of the
roles that they need to fulfil, depending on the research request or the project that the Institute
is working on.
The legitimacy and specialization of contributors, as well as their networked connections, are
vital not only for the resources that they contribute toward the sustained exploration of
knowledge, but also for the heterogeneity of the knowledge bases that they contribute. In turn,
the benefit members of the ecosystem are often embedded in other ecosystems as well, be it
business, innovation, or entrepreneurial ecosystems, which means that they have the ability to
bridge the divide between knowledge ‘stock’ and ‘flow’ (Archer-Brown & Kietzmann, 2018),
which requires “new systems and understanding of the way in which [knowledge] can flow
between diverse individuals, teams and organizations” (Archer-Brown & Kietzmann, 2018,
p.1290). From a strategic marketing perspective, it also denotes the development of adaptive,
agile and innovative marketing skills (Erevelles et al., 2007).
In terms of the geographic locality of actors, the Institute historically predominantly consisted
of actors that were in close proximity to the Institute and heavily relied on face to face contact
─ a model that started to change in 2019, and is now quickly accelerating due to COVID-19.
“We need to prioritize relationships based on where the research expertise and the market
demand for projects are, which used to entail a lot of travel. Our main focus has been South
Africa, but we’ve started working with partners outside of our borders in recent years. We are
in constant discussion as to how we evolve our business and research delivery model. We do
not want to make geographic proximity a barrier” (Dr Lappeman).
4.5.1.2. Activities
The ecosystem activities that the UCT Liberty ISM gets involved with, primarily center on the
production of research, which is of benefit to academics, strategic marketers, and researchers
in the commercial and public sector. As the Institute is externally and privately funded, the
research reports and projects that they take on are all externally focused, as Professor Simpson
put it: “Our primary focus and interest group is industry ─ so everything we do needs to align
with that.” The Institute conducts large-scale research projects on broad market segment topics
over a 12 to 18-month period, which would likely be too resource intensive, extensive and
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expensive for most research firms to conduct if not pertinently being commissioned by a client
to do so.
The research reports and projects that the Institute conduct require considerable funding. As
such, their business model includes a number of ways to secure funding. As per the inception
of the Institute, the Institute has a long-term anchor sponsor, which includes joint naming
rights. The anchor sponsorship further includes access to all research reports and findings, and
they are allowed to include questions to which they alone would see the results. In addition,
they receive access to all public workshops and will get in-house presentations of any research
output. For specific research projects that are initiated by the Institute, based on an identified
market need, potential project partners and supporters are identified, which goes toward
covering the costs of conducting the research and all project-specific related expenses. Other
forms of securing funds include making the research output (new and archived research)
available for purchase, paid attendance of public presentations of new research, and paid in-
house presentations of the research to individual firms. Research output, including reports and
case studies, are made available to other academic organizations free of charge. A key
differentiator that the Institute prides themselves on, is their ability to access and bring a broad
range of actors together for the purposes of joint learning.
Not only does the Institute leverage their association with the university as a form of signaling,
but they also use it to set the agenda in terms of the research output that they deliver. Over the
past three years, the Institute has invested time and financial resources into publishing their
research in peer-reviewed academic journals as well. Although their primary focus is still
industry, they have realized that their university-association affords them the opportunity to
build further brand equity among potential industry partners.
A distinct tension mentioned was the need to reinvent the Institute and finding new ways to
address the changing consumer landscape. Opportunities for reinvention and transformation do
present itself, but, as the keystone actor, the Institute tends not to pursue these opportunities as
they feel it may distract from their core value proposition and their non-biased appeal among
the marketing fraternity.
4.5.1.3. Alignment
The UCT Liberty ISM aligns its actors and their activities based on their dynamic and
coevolving capabilities, as well as with industry demands. The Institute needs to keep pace
with the changes they can sense in their external environment. In terms of the Institute’s
establishment, that was its main mandate ─ to reflect and review a changing consumer market.
Although a sensitivity to these changes is key to the Institute’s long-term sustainability and
development, both research participants acknowledge that this dynamic process takes time and
intentionality to implement.
As the Institute is university-based, but doesn’t independently own any assets, the leveraging
of their university association also comes into play when steering the ecosystem actors into a
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direction regarding the research reports or projects that they get involved in. It both serves as
a form of indemnity and affirmation of independence, “...people expect that because the
research is coming out of the university, that there are no hidden agendas” (Dr Lappeman).
4.5.1.4. Artifact
Within the ecosystem context, artifacts refer to products and services, inputs and outputs
(including tangible and intangible resources) that are jointly created as an ecosystem-level
output among all actors (Granstrand & Holgersson, 2020). Knowledge ecosystems differ from
other ecosystem types in the sense that their artifacts or ecosystem-level output is generally
research-based knowledge and associated applications. Actors jointly create and explore new
knowledge as a shared resource, with Järvi et al. (2018) stating that knowledge ecosystems
mostly occur in pre-competitive and pre-commercialization settings.
Aligned with most other knowledge ecosystems, the UCT Liberty ISM is focused on the
exploration of knowledge (Clarysse et al., 2014), with their research being broad and general
for firms and other ecosystem member-actors to adapt or modify the primary research into new
knowledge, based on their respective needs. The exploration of knowledge is central to the
sustained existence of the Institute. Dr Lappeman pointed out that “there’s a little bit of
controversy around whether knowledge gets produced or rather just exposed. But that does put
a bit of pressure on us ─ we need to keep producing research that is valuable. The industry
will very quickly pick up whether what we're saying is something that they've heard before or
whether it's new.”
4.5.2. Findings Based on Strategic Determinants of Ecosystems
Following the theory elaboration approach (Lee et al., 1999), four dimensions that relate to
perspectives on competition, as deduced from the three strategy streams of thought reviewed
in the paper, are thereafter discussed as strategic determinants to explore how competition
works. These dimensions are the competitive context, market attentiveness, beliefs regarding
organizational boundaries, and the sustainability of strategic advantage.
4.5.2.1. The Competitive Context
As evidenced by the case, the UCT Liberty ISM is acutely aware of their current and direct
competitor set, as well as their changing environment. From a resource- and capabilities-based
view, their knowledge ecosystem represents a diverse, heterogeneous, and specialized set of
actors, which serves to heighten their competitive advantage and agility to adapt to a fast-
changing and dynamic competitive context. They maintain a dynamic orientation towards their
competitive context, and their ecosystem actors, both contributors and benefit members, reflect
a broad and network-oriented range of resources and capabilities from which to draw on.
Knowledge ecosystem activities within the UCT Liberty ISM are exclusively externally
focused and complementarities in resources and capabilities are sought in addressing
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ecosystem output in the form of research. In terms of alignment of actors and activities, the
university-association serves as a signaling and influence-leveraging mechanism. Interesting
to note is that although the university does not contribute towards the Institute financially, it
does confer scientific and academic legitimacy on the ecosystem, which does prove to be
beneficial to the ecosystem as a whole. The university association also levels the playing field
in terms of opening up access to collaborations among traditional competing actors, as the joint
goal of knowledge exploration stands to benefit all involved.
4.5.2.2. Market Attentiveness
As the keystone actor, the UCT Liberty ISM manages a fine balance between panarchy and
restoration. Although the participants revealed high levels of market attentiveness by
constantly meeting with all ecosystem actors to assess changes in the market, the intricacies of
all the stakeholders involved in the ecosystem would render it difficult for them to constantly
restructure and reorganize to capitalize on new opportunities. The Institute purposefully does
not pursue all potential opportunities and maintain that their intentional decision to produce
broadly-themed research-based knowledge output secures their survival. This perspective
resembles a Resource-Advantage based approach, wherein the resources of the knowledge
ecosystem only have value in as much as they contribute to enhance performance outcomes,
which, in this case, would be serving existing actors and benefit members of the ecosystem.
A potentially too narrowly-focused strategic approach to service primarily the marketing

research fraternity, could additionally be perceived as representing a static view of their market
and competitive context. As they increasingly start to employ technology to bridge the
geographic boundaries of their actor and market base, one will expect that their reach and the
range of their activities will concomitantly also be broadened. This, in turn, would open up
new segments through time, which would make the strategy more dynamic as well.
Characteristically inherent to knowledge ecosystems, is the fact that their focal ecosystem-level
output, knowledge, takes time to explore or expose. This creates a potential weakness in not
being able to promptly seize disruptive market changes.
Day (2020) asserts that an outside-in approach requires anticipation, adaptation and alignment
to the market. The fact that the Institute’s business model hasn’t changed much over the past
20 years indicates that although there is an attentiveness and anticipation of changes in the
market, the adaptive and dynamic capabilities to transform and align with the identified
opportunities or threats in the markets, is a difficult task to accomplish. The artifact of the
ecosystem is primarily exploratory in nature, which means that the commercialization of the
explored knowledge mostly happens outside of the boundaries of the knowledge ecosystem. In
addition, and perhaps linked, the actor activities, although network-oriented, are not entirely
interdependent in terms of the survival of the ecosystem. As such, barring the small core staff
complement of the Institute, the other ecosystem actors are not overtly incentivized to
contribute to the long-term sustainability and development of the knowledge ecosystem.
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4.5.2.3 Organizational Boundaries
The knowledge ecosystem implies a hyper-networked context where relationships constitute

the most valuable resources, which is also evidenced in this particular case. Relationships with
ecosystem actors contribute towards resources, capabilities and activities that are mobilized for
knowledge exploitation. As an extension, access to the networks of actors situated in other
ecosystems, contribute to potential resources and capabilities to complement that of the
ecosystem or keystone actor, which can in turn enhance performance (Håkansson & Snehota,
2006). Additionally, both research participants reiterated that the Institute needs to add value
and have a compelling value proposition to constituents, which underscores that they put a
premium on being relevant to all stakeholders, internal and external.
This iterative process of external resource and capability exchange, combined with constant
pursuit of producing research that is valuable, points to a primarily outside-in approach.
Resource exchange is, however, dependent on the relative efficiency of the internal resources
to adapt and extract the necessary insights, and as such, spanning capabilities also play an
important role in this knowledge ecosystem. The Institute, however, has full autonomy over
the strategic direction of the knowledge ecosystem and all the other actors follow their lead in
terms of strategic choices and activities, reaffirming the importance of keystone actors or tenant
firms in knowledge ecosystems.
4.5.2.4. The Sustainability of Strategic Advantage
As the keystone actor, the UCT Liberty ISM’s approach to the sustainability of their knowledge
ecosystem’s strategic advantage, is caught between two tensions. On the one hand, the research
output that they offer, once explored and exposed, is available for all customers and actors to
further exploit, and as such the focal output is by nature transient and not enduring. The brand
equity and brand recognition of the Institute, the intangible assets and by-products of their
knowledge base, does however contribute to a longer term sustainable competitive advantage
over other potential market entrants. As previously stated, the knowledge ecosystem is not fully
able or geared towards continually reconfiguring its structures, resources and capabilities to
renew their advantages from one to the next. The process of knowledge exploration also takes
time, which adds another layer of complexity in the process of achieving rapidly-created
advantages, typical of a transient advantage strategic approach.
4.6. Overview of Overall Findings
In this section, a summary of the findings for each research question are presented. Figure 15
presents an overview of how the findings from each respective research question and paper
address the overarching research problem: How is competitive advantage achieved through an
ecosystem approach in industrial marketing?
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Figure 15: An overview of the findings of the dissertation, according to the four research
questions and accompanying papers
91
The golden thread in terms of the findings based on the four research questions and the research
problem, relate to two central themes (Figure 15). Firstly, the role that knowledge plays in
attaining competitive advantage through an ecosystems approach in industrial marketing
repeatedly came to the fore. Secondly, the theoretical perspectives highlight that it is the
relationships between the various actors in the ecosystem that drive the knowledge-related
advantages of the whole ecosystem. In a networked context, knowledge drives competitive
advantage, and is vital to achieve other metrics of performance, including, innovation- and
entrepreneurship-related outcomes. For example, when new knowledge is created and there is
a high level of social capital present in an ecosystem, the biggest competitive advantage will
be achieved. Similarly, where knowledge creation is prioritized as a dynamic capability,
innovation performance is higher and competitive advantage is attained. Finally, knowledge
seems to best create competitive advantage when shared – in other words storing knowledge
for exploration, without sharing it for exploitation, doesn’t equate to achieving sustainable
competitive advantage. Thus, pursuing an outside-in strategic approach would also necessitate
interdependence between ecosystem actors to ensure that the primary knowledge explored is
purposed for the growth of the whole ecosystem.
The section to follow discusses the theoretical contributions and managerial implications of
this dissertation.
4.7. Research Contributions
In assessing how competitive advantage is achieved through an ecosystem approach in

industrial marketing one needs to start with an understanding of what the ecosystems concept
encompasses. Extant theories relating to competitive advantage have, at their core, the
ownership or exclusive access to assets and certain resources or capabilities (Barney, 1991;
Porter, 1990; Wernerfelt, 1984). This assumes that businesses operate in a stable environment
where asset ownership and firm-managed resources serve as assured capitalizing sources of
advantage. In an increasingly unpredictable and fast-changing business environment, these
sources of advantage have, however, become less effective at building or sustaining
competitiveness (Möller et al., 2020). No current theory of ecosystems exists, and although it
was not the aim of this dissertation to develop such a theory, empirically, the results of the
research does extend and evolve our current understanding of how competitive advantage plays
out from an ecosystems approach. Focusing on a network theory, RBV, and dynamic
capabilities perspective, three particular areas are highlighted.
First, the research points to the centrality of knowledge as a key component of ecosystem
competitiveness from a network theory perspective. Understanding that a high degree of social
capital may facilitate the appropriation of new knowledge and lead to better innovation and
competitive outcomes, is a first step towards better understanding how interrelationships,
which are key within network theory, contribute towards the transfer of knowledge. Second,
the RBV of the firm posits that competitive advantage is achieved through ownership or control
of assets and resources. The research, however, shows that this is only partially true in an
ecosystems approach. Instead, we see that ecosystems are shaped by partial influence.
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Birkinshaw (2019) uses the analogy of resources and assets previously being seen as moats
that provide and protect one’s competitive advantage. In ecosystems, however, these moats
should rather be seen as turnstiles, where the larger the ecosystem becomes, the better it can
create and add value to a bigger market (Birkinshaw, 2019). Third, the research extends on the
dynamic capabilities framework, by reinforcing the dynamism inherent in the survival of the
ecosystem. Ecosystems that do not adapt, die. But, at the same time, an ecosystem needs all
elements to be in balance for continued existence. As such, it extends the notion of dynamic
capabilities to be analogous to market attentiveness from an organizational perspective, flexing
the notion of panarchy versus restoration. Panarchy is presented as a theory of change
describing human and ecological interactions as adaptive cycles of destruction and
reorganization, which provides opportunities for restructuring (Holling & Gunderson, 2002).
Adopting this view, organizations with a high level of market attentiveness would encourage
change, build resilience, facilitate sustainability, and encourage diversity. The converse being
that a low level of market attentiveness would discourage change and rather focus on
“ecosystem restoration”, which implies not taking advantage of new opportunities but rather
returning to the original ecosystem state or status quo.
Möller et al. (2020, p.389) point out that “business marketing and marketing in general is losing
its relevance because it views business environments as simplistic “markets” and concentrates
on dyadic business relationships and their management rather than ecosystem analysis and
orchestration.” Addressing this challenge this dissertation emphasizes that an ecosystem
approach is characterized by dynamic and complex activities between actors, that encourage
collaboration across organizational borders. It focuses on engaging in shaping strategies (Hagel
et al., 2008), which aim to influence the other actors in the ecosystem for the shared purpose
of creating more value. The research problem, accompanying research questions, and papers
in this dissertation aim to contribute to our understanding of the strategies that can be employed
to achieve competitive advantage in a complex and disruptive business environment, by using
an ecosystem approach.
At a conceptual level, the dissertation points out that the ecosystem properties that relate to
ecosystem-level output, ecosystem-level activities and ecosystem-level structure, underscore
the respective strategies that are employed to achieve competitive advantage within and across
ecosystems in industrial marketing. Table 11 provides a summary of the research contributions,
which further points to the level of competitiveness inherent in each ecosystem type. As
indicated in Table 11, knowledge ecosystems are shown to be the least competitively focused,
with entrepreneurial ecosystems positioned as the most competitive. Illustratively shown in
Figure 16 the ecosystem properties that relate to ecosystem-level output, ecosystem-based
activities, and ecosystems-as-structure can be used as a frame of reference to unify the research
contributions under the joint conceptual ecosystem umbrella and show that there are
transferable contributions across all ecosystem types, in order to address the overarching
research problem. Detailed specifics that relate to the theoretical contribution of each particular
research question are additionally also contained within each respective paper 1.
1 All papers are presented within the Appendices section.
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Table 11: Summary of research contributions
94
Firstly, the centrality of knowledge as an ecosystem-level output emerged as an important
driver of competitive advantage across all of the studied ecosystems. In particular, the
exploration of a shared knowledge base as ecosystem-level output within knowledge
ecosystems, creates a ‘knowledge foundation’ which other ecosystem types can capitalize on,
by gaining insight into the competitive context, market, or their organizational boundaries.
Akin to both resource- and capabilities-based theories, this relates to environmental sensing or
deep market learning (Hunt & Madhavaram, 2020; Day, 2020), which often act as precursors
to innovation and new product or service development. Knowledge exploration as a source of
competitiveness is, however, constrained by a number of factors. These include the availability
of suitable resources and capabilities within the ecosystem to capitalize on and exploit the
knowledge base, as well as the interest and competence of the actors that comprise the
ecosystem. In addition, the exploration of knowledge is a time-consuming process.
Secondly, newly acquired primary knowledge can be exploited in other ecosystem types,
which, based on the typology presented in Chapter 2, mostly happens within innovation-related
ecosystems, i.e. business, service and platform ecosystems. These innovation ecosystems fulfil
a critical role in actuating ecosystem-level output into ecosystem-based activities, for example
business models or processes, that would yield some form of idiosyncratically defined value
outcome for the whole ecosystem. As per the findings of two of the research questions, the
exploitation and creation of new knowledge domains have the biggest impact on ecosystem
performance and competitiveness. As such, ecosystem-level activities that facilitate the
creation and appropriation of new knowledge, by encouraging actor interaction that influences,
mobilizes and leverages relationships, both within and beyond the ecosystem, would yield the
biggest value-adding advantage. Once the newly acquired knowledge has been exploited and
a common goal has been established for its appropriation, it often requires the collaborative
effort of a heterogeneous set of actors outside the organizational boundaries of the innovation
ecosystem to further diffuse the innovation into a bigger context and broader market.
Thirdly, entrepreneurial ecosystems provide a vehicle with which to connect regional economic
development strategy, entrepreneurial activity and innovative initiatives associated with job
creation, urban revitalization, economic growth and development (Ács et al. 2017; Adner 2017;
Audretsch & Belitski 2017; Isenberg 2016). Characterized by a broad range of actors and
ecosystem members that all converge around the sole purpose of market development and
growth, entrepreneurial ecosystems provide the structural framework with which to actuate
transformation in the broader context and achieve competitive advantage. As explored
knowledge only provides transient advantage, as per the findings of research question 4, the
process of knowledge exploration, exploitation and transformation needs to be ongoing in order
to constantly renew and reinvent the ecosystem and explore or expose new knowledge for
sustained advantage.
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Figure 16: Illustrative representation of broader ecosystem-level theoretical contributions
4.8. Managerial Implications
From a managerial perspective, this body of work provides a new lens through which to view
the strategic potential of an ecosystems approach to industrial marketing. Various strategies
are presented to achieve and maintain competitive advantage, which can be employed to
compete and add value in a fast-changing and complex business environment. Following on
from the four competitive considerations of ecosystems that were proposed to have an impact
on the evolving nature of strategic competitiveness within industrial marketing in Chapter 1,
several competitive advantage strategies are presented next in this section.
4.8.1. Interorganizational Collaboration: Leveraging Knowledge
First, the importance of cooperation and collaboration between actors both within and across
ecosystems are underscored. This highlights the move away from seeking to establish
superiority over other external competitors, to an evolution towards investing in connections,
including cooperative and competitive relationships, which serves to build the overall
competitiveness of the whole ecosystem (Aarikka-Stenroos & Ritala, 2017). Considering the
interdependency among partners in ecosystems, the leveraging and exploration of new
knowledge provides the biggest strategic competitive advantage in an ecosystem. Ecosystems
with a high level of social capital and which succeed in creating new knowledge, would have
the biggest likelihood of achieving and maintaining competitive advantage.
4.8.2. Dependency on Resources and Capabilities Outside of Direct Control of

One Single Organization: Outside-in Strategic Orientation
Second, the dependency on resources and capabilities outside of the direct control of any one
particular entity in an ecosystem approach, highlights the importance of managing
96
interorganizational and interdependent relationships (Pellikka & Ali-Vehmas, 2016). This
stands in contrast to a positioning approach where competitive advantage is achieved by only
focusing on industry-specific resources and capabilities (Fuller et al., 2019), to a strategic
approach where influence and complementarity reach beyond the control of the individual
organization (Jacobides et al., 2018). An awareness of the competitive context and market
surrounding the ecosystem, specifically relating to the resources and capabilities of the broader
ecosystem actors and members that can be leveraged for enhanced ecosystem performance,
strengthens not only the individual organization, but the ecosystem as a whole. Collaborative
opportunities that seek to build the exploration and exploitation of knowledge, as well as the
transformation of this knowledge into entrepreneurial endeavors, build and create competitive
advantage for all within the ecosystem.
4.8.3. Dynamic Connections: Adaptation, Integration and Reconfiguration
Third, competitiveness is established through dynamic connections. The larger the ecosystem,
the greater the ability to interact with potential complementary actors to create and share value
(Iansiti & Levien, 2004; Möller et al., 2020). This is, in other words, a move away from creating
high barriers to entry – rather, newcomers are welcomed, as long as they can add value and
grow the market. At times, the advantage might be transient in nature, which emphasizes the
importance of diffusing knowledge throughout the ecosystem as best as possible in order to
fully capitalize on its value. In ecosystems with a high level of social capital present, the
leveraging of existing knowledge could serve to reach incremental innovation goals quickly,
albeit that it would not serve to maintain long-term competitive advantage. To be adaptable to
a dynamic environment, ecosystem connections need to be dynamic and adaptability to change
and evolutionary thinking would serve to strengthen the sustainability of competitiveness of
the ecosystem and its members.
4.8.4. Competing Beyond Traditional Industry Boundaries: Advantage for All
Fourth and finally, from a competitive perspective, success within ecosystems spans beyond
traditional industry boundaries and advantage is achieved by creating value for other actors in
the ecosystem as much as seeking to create value for one’s own organization, regardless the
industry or sector (Jacobides, 2019). The stronger the ecosystem as a whole, the more value it
can add to all its actors and members – building the market as a whole, transcending traditional
industry and sector boundaries.
The section to follow notes the limitations of the study and also presents areas for future
research.
97
4.9. Limitations and Suggested Areas for Future Research
Inevitably, this study has certain limitations, which will pave the way for future research and
analyses. First, the research analysis only encompassed the results from a very specific search
query. The use of more and broader search terms would yield different results and might
include additional sources and scholars as influential to the development of the field. Second,
in terms of the documents used for analysis, only research articles formed part of the scope of
study, and thus the inclusion of other research material, such as book chapters or other
publication types, might provide different insights. As an area with burgeoning
multidisciplinary interest, another potential avenue to explore is the work of PhD students in
the field. By reviewing the authors and papers that influence these students, as well as the
universities that they are affiliated with, one would potentially get a more in-depth
representation of the depth of influence of certain institutions and scholars. The third and final
limitation is the dynamism of citations and the reality that they constantly change. The citations
reported thus only represent articles that were published during a particular period of time. In
addition to this, one should be cognizant of the fact that citation count for an article is also
dependent on how long it has been since the article has been published.
Future research could contrast the evolution of the concept through time, by dividing the
literature into different quartiles and comparing the development of the field, as well as the
keywords that relate to competitiveness, based on different changes and trends per quartile.
These analyses exemplify a current representation over a particular period of time and should
thus periodically be updated to track how knowledge has further developed and influence has
been disseminated. Research into the heightened competitiveness of a region as a result of
public sector involvement in entrepreneurial ecosystems, is a relatively uncharted area which
warrants further investigation. Further to this, a particular focus on entrepreneurial leadership
development programs and public sector involvement in driving these types of initiatives,
could serve to build a better understanding of how successful initiatives can be implemented
by developing more and better entrepreneurs. Empirical and comparative research in the area
of national or transnational innovation and technology policies, and its effect on regional
development and entrepreneurial initiatives is another area that could further progress the
public sector entrepreneurship literature. A final area for future research is the comparison of
high-growth entrepreneurial ecosystems, to assess how replicable they are in terms of sectors,
technology, geography, and performance.
Paper 2: Leveraging Social Capital in University-Industry Knowledge Transfer Strategies:

A Comparative Positioning Framework
This study only offers a snapshot representation of the university-industry partnerships present
in the three regions identified. As such, findings relate to a particular context at a particular
point in time and the researchers do not deny the influence of additional macro-contextual
factors on the interpretation of the results. Future research could conduct longitudinal studies
98
to track the change in positioning over a period of time or to compare how heightened social
capital over a period of time impacts the output of the university-industry partnership as an
innovation ecosystem. An exploration of the products of university-industry knowledge
transfer can also be strategically mapped and compared. In addition, a more detailed
description of the respective intellectual capital dimensions present in university-industry
partnerships and its impact on knowledge transfer, present fertile ground for future exploration.
Paper 3: Innovation Performance: The Effect of Knowledge-Based Dynamic Capabilities in

Three limitations are noted in this study. First, using secondary data constrains the researcher
to analyze dimensions and variables measured with predetermined items. The Global
Innovation Index dataset does, however, provide measures for consistency and reliability, yet,
future research could in particular seek to validate the internal structure between the knowledge
capability constructs and seek to contextually validate all measurement items. As a KBDC
variable, knowledge impact, in particular, could be further probed and empirically studied.
Second, when operationalizing KBDC, human resources or knowledge workers were not
included as constructs. Although people are central to the creation, diffusion, absorption and
impact of knowledge, the exclusion was driven by a focus that was more nuanced towards the
inherent and diverse knowledge abilities present in the people within the ecosystem. As such,
from a unit of analysis perspective, the particularities of the people within the ecosystem fell
outside the scope of this study. Third, the study provides a snapshot representation within a
particular context, and future research could take an in-depth look at member-specific aspects
within an innovation ecosystem. The results indicate that efficient innovation performance,
based on innovation inputs and outputs, are concentrated in specific market economies,
possibly pointing to an innovation divide between innovation ecosystems. A comparative
longitudinal study would provide a more detailed perspective regarding changes over time, and
how this affects innovation performance. Finally, the use of secondary data meant that the study
adopted a linear approach to measuring innovation performance (input-output relationship).
Future research could seek to provide a more holistic inclusion of the factors, influences and
determinants of innovation performance within an innovation ecosystem context.
Paper 4: Competition in Knowledge Ecosystems: A Theory Elaboration Approach Using a

Case Study
The use of a single case study is not without its limitations, however, the rich insights offered
by this design provided the researcher with the ability to gather information that is exploratory
in nature and which would otherwise not have been possible to elicit through other forms of
data collection. Knowledge ecosystems are admittedly multi-level, and as such, competition
will have many other facets based on the various levels and actors’ perspectives. This is an area
that offers numerous avenues for future research. By presenting the perspective of the keystone
actor, the paper does, however, add to our extant understanding of how competition works, by
acknowledging the role that the focal organizational entity plays in setting the strategic agenda
and orientation of the knowledge ecosystem. Finally, adopting a theory elaboration approach
99
with three particular streams of thought predetermined, implies that other theories or
perspectives on competition and inherent strategic orientations were excluded. Future research
could use the theoretical lenses provided by learning theory and chaos theory to further probe
the inherent processes within knowledge ecosystems. Future research would thus further
contribute to our understanding of the competitive forces inherent to knowledge ecosystems,
by also probing the business models that they employ and comparatively assessing their
interaction with other innovation or entrepreneurial ecosystem actors.
Chapter 4 provided a summary of the research findings, based on the central research problem
of this dissertation: How is competitive advantage achieved through an ecosystem approach in
industrial marketing? The chapter further provided an overview of the key theoretical
contributions and managerial implications, as surmised from the respective research questions
and papers. Of interest to note is the centrality of knowledge, as well as the importance of
relationships and interactivity between actors to materialize a focal value proposition within
ecosystems. The interplay between the different ecosystems also provide fertile ground for
further assessment, as the research points to definite complementarities not only within
ecosystems, but also between different types of ecosystems. The Chapter concluded by noting
the limitations of the research and offering suggested areas for future research.
100
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Department of Social Science, Technology and Arts
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ISSN 1402-1544
ISBN 978-91-7790-791-6 (print)
ISBN 978-91-7790-792-3 (pdf)
Luleå University of Technology 2021
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DOCTORA L T H E S I S

Competitive Advantage Strategies in

Luleå University of Technology (LTU)

Intensified competitive pressures related to a dynamic and hypercompetitive global economy,

Contemporary strategy literature converging at the crossroads between organizational

Keywords: ecosystems; competitive advantage; competitiveness; network theory; social

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CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE RESEARCH

1.1. Introduction to the Research Area 1

1.1.1. The Ecosystems Concept 1

1.1.2. Defining Ecosystems 3

1.1.3. The Relevance of Ecosystems to Industrial Marketing 5

1.1.4. Why Ecosystem Competitiveness Matters to Industrial Marketing 7

1.1.4.1. Interorganizational Collaboration 9

1.1.4.2. Dependency on Resources and Capabilities Outside of 9

1.1.4.3. Dynamic Connections 9

1.1.4.4. Competing Beyond Traditional Industry Boundaries 10

1.2. Research Gap Identification 10

1.3. Research Scope 18

1.4. Research Problem 19

1.5. Chapter Summary 19

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1. The Evolution and Development of the Ecosystem Concept 20

2.2. Ecosystem Characteristics 21

2.3. Ecosystem Types 25

2.3.1. Innovation Ecosystem 29

2.3.2. Entrepreneurial Ecosystem 30

2.3.3. Knowledge Ecosystem 31

2.4. Theoretical Perspectives: Ecosystems and Competitive Advantage 32

2.4.1. Network Theory and Social Capital 34

2.4.1.1. Structural Dimension 35

2.4.1.2. Relational Dimension 35

2.4.1.3. Cognitive Dimension 36

2.4.2. Resource-Based View and Dynamic Capabilities 36

2.5. Development of Research Questions 37

2.5.2. Ecosystem Focus of Research Questions 38

2.6. Formulation of Research Questions 39

2.6.1. Research Question 1 is addressed by Research Paper 1 40

2.6.2. Research Question 2 is addressed by Research Paper 2 42

2.6.3. Research Question 3 is addressed by Research Paper 3 43

2.6.4. Research Question 4 is addressed by Research Paper 4 45

2.7. Delineation: Construct, Context and Units of Analysis 48

2.8. Chapter Summary 49

3.2. Research Approach 50

3.3. Research Strategy and Design 53

3.3.1. Addressing Research Question 1 54

3.3.1.1. Research Design 54

3.3.1.2. Research Method 55

3.3.2. Addressing Research Question 2 56

3.3.2.1. Research Design 56

3.3.2.2. Research Method 56

3.3.3. Addressing Research Question 3 57

3.3.3.1. Research Design 57

3.3.3.2. Data and Sample 58

3.3.3.4. Data Analysis 59

3.3.4. Addressing Research Question 4 59

3.3.4.1. Research Design and Research Method 59

3.3.4.2. Data Collection 60

3.4. Quality Criteria 61

3.5. Structure of Individual Papers 62

3.6. Chapter Summary 67

4.2. Findings: Research Question 1 69

4.3. Findings: Research Question 2 74

4.4. Findings: Research Question 3 78