Industry Transformation and Collaboration : To Drive and to Be Driven from an Evolutionary Perspective - Conceptualisation and First Empirical Findings

To analyze a widely observable phenomenon - Industry Transformation - adequately, the authors suggest an approach by paradigmatically compatible evolutionary theories on two interrelating levels: the market level (to be analyzed from a New Austrian Economics' perspective) and the firm level (to be analyzed with the Competence-based Theory of the Firm). Delphi-analysis and case study research within the German healthcare sector revealed that various forms of collaboration have a crucial role in and for industry transformation processes. Predominant forms of collaboration which can be observed in transforming industries are 'closing-gap alliances', 'option networks' and 'steering alliances'. The paper endeavors on characterizing these three forms of collaboration against the above-mentioned theoretical background. It turns out that they are sometimes very much 'driven' by industry transformation, but often a means to further 'drive' the change processes