EXPRESS: Explaining the Nonalignment of Ecosystem Partners: a Structuralist Approach

Abstract

Developing a new value proposition requires that a set of partners align their interests. The challenge is to define an ecosystem strategy and agree on its constitutive features. Drawing on a “structuralist approach”, we provide insights into the conditions that constrain the alignment of partners. We conducted a longitudinal process study of the ecosystem of mobile contactless services in France that failed to reach alignment among partners. A comprehensive twelve-year picture of the ecosystem is created using a double-analytical design that reinforces the accuracy of the analysis. Our results highlight the factors that hinder the alignment of partners and lead to the development of an ecosystem based on a very different blueprint at the expense of its initial contributors. We reveal three sources of nonalignment: an overly ambitious and loosely defined value proposition, a value distribution risk, and inconsistencies in the multiscale institutional context.