Synergy is a concept fraught with ambiguity about its sources and effects, perhaps as a consequence of of previous … literature on the subject not distinguishing between these. In this paper, the sources of synergy are separated from the sources …, and thus be able to answer the question of when and under which circumstances synergy can be expected to generate …

organizations. The first is a new layer of organization structure: a business “ecosystem.” The second is the economic concept of … “complementarity.” Ecosystems are groups of autonomous firms and individuals whose actions and investments create joint value … the value they can create acting separately. The modern theory of complementarity thus helps to explain when and why …