In developing (circular) city logistics innovations, we often discuss creating ecosystems to address the systemic questions involving multiple stakeholders in these value chains. For example, recently, we posted about how ecosystems differ from and relate to supply chains.
Innovating firms often need to rely on other actors in their innovation ecosystem to achieve a complex value proposition. This raises many new challenges for the managers of these firms. However, a comprehensive approach is not yet to support managers in analyzing and decision-making on ecosystem strategy. In a recent paper, researchers developed a strategic tool to map, analyze and design (i.e., model) innovation ecosystems.
From the scholarly literature, the researchers distilled the constructs and relationships that capture how actors in an ecosystem interact in creating and capturing value. Next, the researchers embed these elements in a visual strategy tool, the Ecosystem Pie Model (EPM), accompanied by extensive application guidelines. The researchers then illustrate how the EPM can be used and conclude by exploring the multiple affordances of the EPM tool as a boundary object between research and practice.