Aligning innovation ecosystem strategies with internal R&D

Abstract

Innovation based on external cooperation is becoming more and more relevant for many firms. We focus primarily on the innovation ecosystem in which firms live in a symbiotic relationship for co-evolvement around a particular technological platform. Literature in this field often focuses on the external strategy, but neglects aligning the ecosystem with the internal R&D strategy. We define three ecosystem types with different engagement models. With help of four case studies we study four different innovation ecosystem strategies. In addition we use an analysis framework ESTO (ecosystem, strategy, technology platform, organizing) to discuss alignment between the internal and external perspectives of the firm.