Dear colleagues,
We hope that you can join us at the Academy for a professional development workshop on Firms, Ecosystems and Innovation. Please see the details below.
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Firms, Ecosystems and Innovation (Sponsored by BPS, TIM)
Professional Development Workshop, 2010 AoM Annual Meeting (Montréal, Canada)
Saturday, Aug 7th, 1:30PM - 3:30PM
Location: Palais des Congres, 512 H
Organizers:
Rahul Kapoor, University of Pennsylvania
Anne Parmigiani, University of Oregon
Discussants:
Ron Adner, Dartmouth College
Allan Afuah, University of Michigan
Carliss Baldwin, Harvard University
John Paul MacDuffie, University of Pennsylvania
Will Mitchell, Duke University
Workshop overview:
A firm's ability to create and capture value from its innovation is critically shaped by the web of interdependent activities and technologies that exist within an ecosystem. Many streams of literatures relate to the theme of innovation in the context of ecosystems. Prominent among these are literatures on strategic alliances and networks, firm boundaries, product and system architectures, new product development, technology and industry evolution. However, these literatures have not explicitly considered the set of complementarities and the differing nature of interdependencies that may be present among activities in the ecosystem, and which may play an important role in shaping firm strategies and performance outcomes. As scholars and practitioners are increasingly viewing firms through an ecosystem lens, there is a need to take stock of the relevant literatures that relate to this emerging theme and to guide the next phase of theoretical and empirical research. We hope that this professional development workshop would help in achieving at least a part of this objective and in creating a cumulative body of knowledge.
Workshop format and registration:
Participants will have the opportunity to hear and learn from some of the leading scholars in strategy and innovation. We intend this to be a working session, helping authors develop their early-stage work, with a focus on sharpening their questions, framing and contributions. We are open to the different theoretical and methodological approaches.
Interested participants should register at https://secure.aomonline.org/PDWReg and send a 3-5 page extended abstract to ecosystem@wharton.upenn.edu by July 19. To ensure high quality feedback and discussion, this workshop is limited to 40 participants.
Key questions and themes:
While participants can choose a wide variety of questions, we offer some suggestive themes to guide their participation:
· How does the nature of activities carried out by firms and the structure of the ecosystem interact with the evolution of technologies and industries?
· How do choices regarding technology and product platforms affect coordination and competitive advantage?
· How is value determined, divided, and captured among ecosystem partners?
· What are the different models of collaborative innovation and the boundary conditions for their success?
· How are different relationships managed within the ecosystem (upstream vs. downstream; familiar vs. new partners; same vs. different industries; etc.) and what are their implications for innovation and firm performance?
· How does the nature of interdependencies among activities affect firm governance choices?
· How do firms manage and sustain their ecosystems?
· How can we use different levels of analysis (firm, industry, ecosystem) and theories that focus on these different levels to analyze innovation and firm performance?
Rahul Kapoor
Assistant Professor of Management
The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
3620 Locust Walk, Suite 2019
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Tel: 215-898-6458
Email: kapoorr@wharton.upenn.edu