Emerging innovation ecosystems: The critical role of distributed innovation agency

Innovation ecosystems are becoming increasingly important for the co-creation and modification of digital innovation by different and often competing organizational actors. However, how innovation ecosystems emerge between such organizational actors is yet unknown. This article addresses this gap by exploring how central organizational actors create innovation ecosystems, and how and why these innovation ecosystems emerge over time and through the interplay of all involved organizational actors that pursue both common (i.e., cooperate) and own goals (i.e., compete). To answer these questions, we opted for a single-case study of a large software development project, initiated by a major logistics company and implemented in collaboration with its independent IT department, six software vendors, and some field experts. This unique constellation with different coopeting (i.e., simultaneously cooperating and competing) organizational actors is particularly well suited to answer our research questions. Our results show that central organizational actors can create the basic structure and procedures of an innovation ecosystem. However, for an innovation ecosystem to progress in its emergence, central organizational actors need to stabilize the basic structure, while all other organizational actors need to help refine the basic procedures. The better adapted the structure and the procedures, the better organizational actors can exploit them to materialize coherent and customer-oriented digital innovation. We present our findings as a three-phase process model of innovation ecosystem emergence, in which innovation agency is distributed and redistributed among the organizational actors. Our findings have important implications for the literature on innovation ecosystems, the coopetition paradox, and digital innovation.