Researching Ecosystems: Taking Stock, Revisiting Existing Constructs, Being Useful to Practice

Over the last few years, “ecosystems” as a term has become an ever more important part of the management vernacular, in practice and research alike. This symposium aims to take stock of the progress we have made in ecosystem research, and consider three complementary angles. First, to look at progress and areas yet to be developed in terms of ecosystem research proper – offering a critical assessment from some of the leading scholars in this emerging field. Second, taking ecosystem as a real-life experiment, a source of variation that can be used to answer broader questions about how we organize and how we jointly create and add value. And third, as an opportunity to revisit our existing, established construct and abstractions, and see how they need to be adjusted, modified or evolve in this shifting, fluid context. Finally, this analysis should all be in the service of the needs of organizations and of polity, which is striving to adjust – for instance, through the very real question of how we should regulate platforms and ecosystems, a question that our intellectual community can contribute to. This symposium is meant to be discussion, rather than presentation-focused, and combine research questions with an exploration of how such research can, true to this years’ theme, help us “build a better world”