The recent surge of interest in “ecosystems” in strategy research and practice has mainly focused on what ecosystems are and how they operate. We complement this literature by considering when and why ecosystems emerge, and what makes them distinct from other governance forms. We argue that...

Extending Teece's landmark 1986 article, we consider how innovators benefit from value appropriation and creation. We elaborate on value appropriation, first by pointing out the importance of "industry architectures", i.e. sector-wide templates that circumscribe the division of labor; and...

This paper provides an integrative analysis of the drivers of vertical scope, using analytical and computational methods. I propose a model with two vertical segments (upstream and downstream), with firm populations that have heterogeneous capabilities, and an intermediate market subject to...