1,721,197 research outputs found
The business ecosystem as a multiple dynamic network
No full textThe chapter analyses the Business Ecosystem metaphor through the lens of biological ecosystem theory. The biological metaphor of the Ecosystem is becoming attractive for scholars and managers. The first open question addressed in the chapter is related to the effectiveness of the ecosystem metaphor. If the ecosystem metaphor is strongly seductive and suggestive highlighting emerging organizational structures and behaviours, it is not clear whether we will be able to extend well known property of natural ecosystem to business environment. This leads to the second open question. The definition of an evolutionary model that supports a business ecosystem. In the business ecosystem perspective the key question is far from being related to firm selection and is strictly related with the path-dependent histories of co-evolving organizational forms. Padgett defines this (2000) as the emergence of organizational genotype (logic of identity) and the process of creation of organizational phenotype (through interaction with surrounding social networks)
Evaluating the impact of a new Technology within a Business Environment: A Methodology supporting Strategic Choices
No full textGlobalization and new technologies are forcing firms to adopt continuous processes of change. Change Management has become a widespread discipline within firms because it allows to manage change in the best possible way and to prevent drastic consequences that could lead the company into failures. Within change management, knowledge management and impact analysis allow managers from one side to find and extract information and from the other-one to make ex-ante evaluations by identifying critical factors of failure, formulating recovery plans, and estimating potential benefits deriving from technological investments, organizational changes or future strategic choices. Starting from these consideration our research aims to create a methodology and a dashboard of analysis in order to support managers in making an accurate and realistic impact analysis with specific reference to the introduction of new ICTs within a business environment. This paper shows the preliminary results of a work-in-progress research. The research has been conducted through a mixed approach: a desk study (analysis and systematization of state of the art) and a field analysis through four case studies identified by a pool of experts (Community of practice) in order to define the methodology and the tools for the dashboard of analysis
Business Networks and Ecosystems: rethinking the biological metaphor
No full textDriven by technological and market changes organizations compete and cooperate, and bring
firms to experiment alternative coordination mechanisms that lead to intermediate or hybrid
forms of organization. During the 90s, Powell and Castells argued that networks are
distinctive form of coordinating economic activity and made sense to classify as “business
network” any organizational structure adopting such a coordination mechanism.
Although research has made important contributions towards the understanding of business
networks, further theoretical and empirical research is required to develop a better
understanding of the processes underlying the structure and evolution of them.
Renewing the expectation of Marshall (1948) several authors look for inspiration in
biological science, electing “the theory of ecosystems” and “the evolutionary theory” as the
main biological research fields affecting social and economic science that provide innovative
perspective and theoretical models.
In this work, we look forward to rethink the biological metaphor in order to explain the real
relationship between business network and ecosystem in an evolutionary perspective
Value network collaborations for innovations in an aerospace company
No full textThe aerospace products are complex and require integration of complementary knowledge and risk sharing among several firms. The aerospace industry is, thus, characterized by an intensive net of collaborations among firms working on aerospace products' systems, sub-systems and components manufacturing and with Governments, public and private research centres and other actors. Furthermore, the product, process and organizational innovations are important to preserve and increase the firm competitiveness improving the excellences in specific fields and the productivity. A case study based on the innovation activities supported by inter-firm collaborations in an aerospace company is object of the paper and has been developed applying the content analysis on a set of interviews. Types of innovation activities and external relations emerge from the study and their integration is analyzed highlighting difference among innovation activities based on the type and quantity of external relations
Progettare in settori ad alta tecnologia: il mondo aerospace
No full textLa complessità del settore aerospaziale e dei suoi prodotti caratterizzano un ciclo di vita del prodotto altamente integrato sia fra le diverse fasi all’interno di una stessa azienda e sia fra diverse aziende con cui si collabora alla realizzazione del prodotto, condividendo talvolta rischi e investimenti. La progettazione è un processo fondamentale che integra diversi aspetti del ciclo di vita di un prodotto e in cui diverse discipline e funzioni devono collaborare insieme per soddisfare le specifiche performance richieste ai prodotti di questo settore. Tale processo è svolto utilizzando potenti tecnologie dell’informazione e comunicazione che ne abilitano le diverse attività e ne permettono la progettazione dei prodotti più performanti. L’articolo si pone l’obiettivo di illustrare le caratteristiche del processo di progettazione nelle aziende aerospaziali come elemento core per tutto il ciclo di vita di un prodotto e di illustrare alcune best practices osservate nel contesto aerospaziale italiano
Digital business ecosystems: theoretical underpinnings
No full textSince the seminal work of J. Moore in 1996, the Biological Metaphor of the Ecosystem has been attractive for many scholars. This interest has been growth by the current global scenario.
The business ecosystem perspective rejects both the concept of region and industry. In the business ecosystem perspective company is viewed not as a member of a single industry but as a part of a business ecosystem that crosses a variety of industries. Business ecosystems base their success on both competition and cooperation. Self-organization and co-evolution are significant phenomena in the development of business ecosystems.
The Digital Business Ecosystem concept is defined as the enabling technology for the Business Ecosystem and represent the digital software environment that support development of distributed and adaptive technologies and evolutionary business models for organisations.
Nevertheless this theoretical approach requires more insight on some specific open questions. The first question currently open is: what is the effectiveness of the ecosystem metaphor? If the ecosystem metaphor is strongly seductive and suggestive highlighting emerging organizational structures and behaviours, it is not clear if we will be able to extend well known property of natural ecosystem to business environment. A similar result could open new and effective way of analysing and managing new, emerging and existing inter-organizational structures of firms.
The second open question is: what evolutionary model can support a business ecosystem perspective? After Nelson and Winter resource based theory about the evolution of the firm many scholars have dealt with evolutionary approaches. Nevertheless in the business ecosystem perspective the evolutionary key question is far from being related to firm selection and is strictly related with the path-dependent histories of co-evolving organizational forms and with the research for what Padgett identify as the emergence of organizational genotype (logic of identity) and the process of creation of organizational phenotype (through interaction with surrounding social networks)
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