Description

Engaging in ecosystems requires incumbent firms to engage in new partnerships—with partners that might include competitors or unknown actors from foreign industries. In such contexts, individual stakeholder utility functions are often opaque, as ecosystem members hesitate to reveal details of their strategy. Objective of this paper is to develop a tool that visualizes an individual ecosystem member’s dependencies and power opportunities within the ecosystem. Building on social exchange and resource dependence theories, we apply a design science research approach to develop an ecosystem illustration. This tool supports managers in deriving strategic implications for how they engage with the ecosystem. Furthermore, by exploring the relationship between interdependencies and power in the ecosystem context, it contributes to the emerging management theory on ecosystems.