Purpose

The rapid adoption of the ecosystem concept in innovation contexts has led to a proliferation of differing uses. Scholars need to be crystal clear which concept of the ecosystem they are using to facilitate communication between scholars and allow for cumulativeness and creativity. This paper aims to introduce some clarity into the conceptual mist that surrounds the notion of “ecosystems” in innovation contexts.

Design/methodology/approach

A review of the extant literature on ecosystems in innovation contexts to derive an integrated approach to understanding the variety of constructs in use.

Findings

This paper introduces clarity into the conceptual mist that surrounds the term “innovation ecosystem”, showing there are three basic types of ecosystems, all of which have a common focus on the collective production of a coherent system-level output.

Originality/value

Contributes through a comprehensive overview of the differing ecosystem types in innovation contexts and with a heuristic to disambiguate types of innovation ecosystems.

中文翻译：

---

在创新背景下研究生态系统

目的

在创新背景下迅速采用生态系统概念导致了不同用途的激增。学者们需要非常清楚他们正在使用哪种生态系统概念来促进学者之间的交流，并允许累积性和创造力。本文旨在对围绕创新环境中“生态系统”概念的概念迷雾进行一些澄清。

设计/方法/方法

回顾现有的关于创新背景下生态系统的文献，以得出一种综合方法来理解正在使用的各种结构。

发现

本文对围绕“创新生态系统”一词的概念迷雾进行了清晰的介绍，表明存在三种基本类型的生态系统，所有这些类型的共同关注点都是集体生产连贯的系统级输出。

原创性/价值

通过对创新环境中不同生态系统类型的全面概述和启发式方法来消除创新生态系统类型的歧义。