Value creation and capture mechanisms in innovation ecosystems: a comparative case study

Management dilemmas in innovative supplier networks

“…Many studies view management of co-innovation as a firm-level phenomenon (Kale et al, 2002;Walter et al, 2006), whereas, in order to understand the innovation within a value network it requires an approach that is explicit not only about the innovation challenges that are faced by the focal firm (Christensen, 1997;Cooper and Schendel, 1976;Henderson and Clark, 1990;Tushman and Anderson, 1986), but views it from the point of multiple actors (Gnyawali and Park, 2009;Ritala et al, 2013), including the focal firm, suppliers, competitors and investors, such as VCs providing funding for the new innovations. Focal companies have "the central actor position within the network that allows it to steer and orchestrate the innovation potential of the network towards joint value creation" (Ritala & Huizingh, 2014), and reap the benefits of being big, as "large firms have powerful competitive advantages in all resource areas -money, people and interfirm relationships, among others.…”

“…Innovating in these potentially coopetitive circumstances (Nalebuff and Brandenburger, 1996) increases the challenges in the orchestration of the R&D relationships and knowledge sharing (Ritala and Tidström, 2014;. Ritala et al (2013) studied management mechanisms, which help to maintain, realise and deploy opportunities for value creation and capture. They separated the mechanisms for the management of the running innovation ecosystem from the ones utilised in its formation phase.…”

“…They separated the mechanisms for the management of the running innovation ecosystem from the ones utilised in its formation phase. The mechanisms included formal structures, such as schedules, platforms and forums (Ritala et al, 2013) as well as common guidelines, contracts, and Intellectual Property Rights 1 (IPRs) concerning profits and appropriability (Dhanaraj and Parkhe, 2006). The 5 complementing intangible mechanisms, in particular inter-firm and inter-personal trust, was recognised as one of the most critical, success factor in collaborative settings.…”

“…The 5 complementing intangible mechanisms, in particular inter-firm and inter-personal trust, was recognised as one of the most critical, success factor in collaborative settings. Other important intangible mechanisms were open communication and maintaining a common vision over time (Ritala et al, 2013). Smith et al (2014) concluded that partners should identify and learn from the collaboration barriers in the ecosystem.…”

“…Especially, research considering the views of both the focal company and the suppliers are still scarce (Gassman et al, 2010). Therefore, there is imminent need to broaden the scope of innovation research towards change management (Van de Vrande et al, 2010) to realise the expected benefits from evolving collaboration (Prashant and Harbir, 2009;Ritala et al, 2013).…”