Governance of Ecosystems E-Book

Michael Hilb

• Herausgeber: Haupt Verlag
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Deutsch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 138

Beschreibung

Shifting from industry- to ecosystem-based strategies is high on the agenda of many corporate boards; whether, as with many incumbents, to reposition themselves, or for upstarts to capitalize on change. As compelling as the strategic logic for ecosystems is, they are often complex and difficult to build and sustain. Lack of or inadequate governance is often cited as a major cause. This book presents ten perspectives on ecosystem governance, bringing together viewpoints from practitioners and academics. It offers practical insights, introduces new perspectives, and invites readers to reflect on their own approaches to ecosystem governance.

Leseprobe

[1] Michael Hilb

(Ed.)

Governance of Ecosystems

[3] Michael Hilb

(Editor)

Governance of Ecosystems

The Role of Governance in Collaborative Value Creation

Haupt Verlag

[4] 1st edition: 2021

ISBN Print: 978-3-258-08231-8

ISBN E-Book: 978-3-258-48231-6

Cover design and typesetting (print): Die Werkstatt Medien-Produktion GmbH, Göttingen

Cover illustration: Anatolii Stoiko / Shutterstock.com

All Rights reserved.

Copyright © 2021 Haupt, Berne

Any kind of reproduction without permission of the owner of copyright is not allowed.

The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available at: http://dnb.dnb.de

www.haupt.ch

Introduction

[5] There are only a few other strategy concepts that seem to preoccupy managers and board members more today than ecosystems. Every strategy discussion begins with envisioning the future ecosystems and defining the role the organization should play in them. As attractive and compelling as the promises often sound, the problems usually start with understanding what ecosystems are and how they differ from traditional industries.

Even when this challenge is resolved, many attempts to develop ecosystems are doomed to failure. According to a study by BCG (Pidun, Reevevs, and Schüssler, 2020), the main reason, i.e., 34 % of all ecosystem failures, is due to wrong governance decisions. Therefore, ecosystem governance is “a major success factor and a big challenge” at the same time (Pidun, Reeves, and Knust 2020, 1).

The importance of governance to ecosystems is also recognized in the emerging ecosystem theory, as expressed by Jacobides, Cennamo, and Gawer (2018, 2269), “To understand such strategic dynamics, we need a clearer sense of how ecosystems are structured and governed. Behavior in an ecosystem, and ultimately, its success, is affected by the rules of engagement and the nature of standards and interfaces.”

It is therefore a great honor to have gathered ten scholars and practitioners to share their insights on ecosystem governance. The contributions are organized into five sections.

The first section examines the foundations of ecosystem governance. I begin by examining the transition from corporate to ecosystem governance, followed by Kilian Schmück and Nicolas Gilgen highlighting the importance of incentive mechanisms in ecosystem governance.

The second section offers two business perspectives on ecosystem governance. My exploration of the multidextrous nature of value-creating ecosystem strategies is followed by Karin Taheny’s article on the role of communication in successful ecosystem adoption.

Two organizational perspectives on ecosystem governance follow. While I focus on the role of power in understanding and shaping organizations, Nicolas Bürer highlights the importance of collaboration in ecosystems.

The next section examines two different legal perspectives on ecosystem governance. Felix Horber and Christina Lusti examine the applicability of corporate law to the challenges of ecosystem governance, followed by Dante Alighieri Disparte’s reflections on structuring ecosystems as associations.

[6] The two concluding articles examine two applications of ecosystem governance. Stefano Santinelli describes how he managed to transform a traditional publishing house into a successful business ecosystem. Finally, Ulrich Schimpel shares his experiences with a public-private ecosystem based on distributed ledger technology.

We hope you enjoy reading it, and that the perspectives offered in this book will help you avoid the pitfalls that have confronted many boards attempting to succeed in ecosystems.

Prof. Dr. Michael Hilb

Burgdorf, March 31, 2021

Literature

Jacobides, M. G., Cennamo, C., & Gawer, A. (2018). Towards a theory of ecosystems. Strategic Management Journal, 39(8), 2255-2276.

Pidun, U., Reeves, M., & Knust, N. (2020): How do you manage a business ecosystem? BCG Henderson Institute.

Pidun, U., Reeves, M., & Schlüssler, M. (2020): Why do most business ecosystems fail? BCG Henderson Institute.

Table of Contents

[7] Introduction

Section A:

Foundations of Ecosystem Governance

From Corporate to Ecosystem Governance

Michael Hilb

Governing Democratized Platform Ecosystems

Kilian Schmück and Nicolas Gilgen

Section B:

Business Perspectives on Ecosystem Governance

Multidextrous Strategy – How to Excel in Platform-driven Ecosystems

Michael Hilb

How to Successfully Launch a Digital Ecosystem Business – The Role of Communications

Karin Taheny

Section C:

Organizational Perspectives on Ecosystem Governance

The Power of Power in Shaping Organizations

Michael Hilb

Driving Transversal Collaboration in Ecosystems

Nicolas Bürer

[8] Section D:

Legal Perspectives on Ecosystem Governance

The Group as a Guiding Model for Ecosystem Governance

Felix Horber and Christina Lusti

The Association as a Guiding Model for Ecosystem Governance

Dante Alighieri Disparte

Section E:

Applications of Ecosystem Governance

Leveraging Digital Ecosystems – How to Transform a Traditional Publisher into a Leading Ecosystem Player

Stefano Santinelli

The Role of Governance to Grow Ecosystems – Lessons Learned from a Public-private Distributed Ledger Technology Journey

Ulrich Schimpel

[9]

Section A:

Foundations of Ecosystem Governance

From Corporate to Ecosystem Governance

Michael Hilb

Abstract

[11] Mastering ecosystems is increasingly seen as key to strategic value creation in highly dynamic environments. The role of governance has become a key differentiator between organizations that win or lose from the ecosystem game. This article discusses the importance of governance to the successful creation, development, and growth of ecosystems and presents eight challenges to be addressed along the ecosystem lifecycle. It continues with a taxonomy of ecosystem governance that provides a menu of effective governance mechanisms to address these challenges. The article concludes with advice on how best to manage the transition from a corporate governance to an ecosystem governance focus.

Author

Michael Hilb is founder and CEO of DBP Group and sits on several boards, such as Klingelnberg, Sigvaris Group, or the International Board Foundation. As a Titular Professor at the University of Fribourg, he teaches strategy, entrepreneurship, and corporate governance at universities in Asia and Europe. Michael Hilb graduated from the University of St. Gallen with an MSc and a PhD, was a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University and INSEAD, and completed several executive education programs at leading business schools.

1 The Emergence and Evolution of Ecosystems

[12] Digitalization is not only transforming societies, economies, and businesses but it also has implications for how different players interact and transact to deliver economic value. There are four implications that are often highlighted when describing this new form of value creation:

1.From asset ownership to asset orchestration: As digitalization enables more effective ways to allocate resources, the focus of activities has shifted from creating value for tangible assets to orchestrating their use as highlighted by Iansiti and Levien (2004, 25): “Strategy is becoming, to an increasing extent, the art of managing assets that one does not own.”

2.From pipelines to platforms: As a result, the orchestrators, or platforms as they are often called, are able to capture more value than the manufacturers as highlighted by Gawer and Cusumano (2002) or Parker, Van Alstyne and Choudary (2016) in their description of the “platform economy.”

3.From competition to co-opetition: As an orchestrator by definition relies on others to produce and consume, the relationship between the different players goes beyond pure competition. Or as Birkinshaw (2020, 11) highlights: “(The platform’s) aim is to maximize the number of people coming through the turnstile, rather than increase the height of the fence or the width of the moat.”

4.From industries to ecosystems: This eventually leads to structural changes in the space where companies operate. While the strategic focus used to be on industries, it increasingly shifts to “ecosystems” (e.g. Ramírez and Mannervik 2016 or Williamson and Meyer 2020).

Welcome to the ecosystem economy. Business ecosystems, which is a term that can be traced back to Moore (1993, 1996), have gained escalating attention over the last decade although the discussion actually dates back more than 30 years (Rietveld and Schilling, 2020).

Based on the initial definition by Moore (1996, 26), who described it as “(a)n economic community supported by a foundation of interacting organizations and individuals – the organisms of the business world,” other academics have refined the term over time.

Adner (2017, 40), for instance, highlighted the importance of “the alignment structure of the multilateral set of partners that need to interact in order for a focal value proposition to materialize.” The value proposition is at the center of the definition by Ramírez and Mannervik (2016, 46), who stress that we should “(think) of value as co-created – not added – by two or more actors [13] in a relationship, synchronically as well as sequentially.” Jacobides, Cennamo, and Gawer (2018, 2264) extend the understanding of ecosystems by stressing that there are “actors with varying degrees of multilateral, non-generic complementarities that are not fully hierarchically controlled.” From a governance perspective, this means “that their members all retain residual control and claims over assets” (2266) and “that ecosystems need to be both de jure and de facto run with decision-making processes that are to some extent distributed” (2266).

2 The Role of Governance in Value Creation in Ecosystems

This brings us to ecosystem governance, which is a key aspect of ecosystems as highlighted by Rietveld and Schilling (2020) or Jacobides, Cennamo, and Gawer (2018). How are interests aligned in the first place? How are these interests orchestrated effectively and fairly? Finally, how can governance maintain and develop as the ecosystems evolve?

This is also reflected in business practice: The failure of building or maintaining ecosystems is often attributed to a lack of effective ecosystem governance (Pidun, Reeves, and Schlüssler 2020). As a result, Fenwick, McCahery, and Vermeulen (2019) propose the need for a distinct “platform governance”. In line with the arguments above, the notion should be extended to “ecosystem governance”.

This paper proposes the “ecosystem-as-governance” view. This builds on two conceptualizations proposed by Adner (2017): the “ecosystem-as-structure” approach, which takes an activity-centric view of interdependence, and the actor-centric “ecosystem-as-affiliation” perspective.

2.1 The Ecosystem-as-affiliation Perspective

An important first step for discussing ecosystem governance is to better understand the different types of actors involved in an ecosystem and the roles that they may play. There is common agreement that different players interact in ecosystems. One player usually takes a lead, which some call “keystone” (Iansiti and Levien 2004) or “orchestrator” (Jacobides, Cennamo, and Gawer 2018). It is in the nature of ecosystems that only few players can be orchestrators (Greeven 2020).

Alongside the orchestrator are other important roles. I suggested in an earlier publication (Hilb 2020a) that five distinct roles can be found in ecosystems: [14] The Platform Orchestrator, Feeder, User, Aggregator and Enhancer. These five players pursue distinctive interests, provide unique contributions and bring their own expectations to an involvement in ecosystems.

Exhibit 1: Platform Forces | platformforces.com

2.2 The Ecosystem-as-structure Perspective

The second perspective proposed by Adner (2017) places the structure of an ecosystem at the center. Three structural dimensions are usually highlighted as Closed vs. Open, Centralized vs. Decentralized and Interaction vs. Transaction-focused ecosystems.

For Pisano and Verganti (2008), the choice between closed and open ecosystems is defined by the access conditions. They argue that closed ecosystems function well if the number of relevant problem solvers are small and known, whereas open ecosystems are recommended if the evaluation of the user quality is easy and everybody can contribute to the solutions. A similar explanation is offered to elaborate on the rationale for centralized vs. decentralized ecosystems. They suggest a centralized solution if the orchestrator has the capability to assess the solutions while preferring a decentralized approach if no single player can do so.

Finally, many authors stress the difference between interaction and transaction-focused ecosystems. While interaction-based ecosystems focus on the exchange of information and data, transaction-focused ecosystems promote the exchange of goods and services.

2.3 The Ecosystem-as-governance Perspective

[15] While the actor- and activity-centric perspectives are important to understand value creation in ecosystems, one central aspect is not yet addressed: how to direct and control those actors and their activities?

In order to discuss the most suitable governance mechanisms for ecosystems, it is worthwhile looking at the generic governance modes. While most distinguish between market- and hierarchy-based governance (e.g. Jacobides, Cennamo, and Gawer 2018), I propose adding a third fundamental governance mode, community-based governance as suggested by Minnaar (2020).

How do the three governance modes differ?

1.Market-based governance: This describes any coordination of economic activity that is based on transactional contracts, such as for trading goods, services, and data. As the terms and conditions of the transactions are clearly defined, so are the consequences if contracts are breached. Hence, all parties have full control but little incentive to develop beyond the contractual obligations.

2.Hierarchy-based governance: If organizations hire staff, they believe it is more efficient to internalize the market. In that case, the coordination is based on instructions within the framework defined by labor laws or labor contracts. In order to increase the efficiency of employees, the employers are incentivized to train them.

3.Community-based governance: In this case, there is little more than a constitution which lays out the basic rules of the interactions. All parties agree on these rules and believe they can act upon them without needing any further enforcement mechanisms. Hence, this governance mode requires a trust-based relationship.

Exhibit 2: Governance Modes | governancemodes.com

[16] With regard to ecosystems, all three forms of governance are displayed. First of all, most players are in market-based relationships with each other, e.g. the behavior of Platform Users and Feeders versus Orchestrators are usually governed by transaction contracts. As many of the actors are firms, they apply hierarchy-based governance mechanisms within their organizations.

At the same time, some actors also apply community-based governance mechanisms when engaging in relationships that go beyond pure market and hierarchy-based governance mechanisms. For instance, the business relationships between a Platform Orchestrator and an Aggregator or an Enhancer are often characterized by a complementary value proposition as defined in the co-opetition model (Nalebuff and Brandenburger 1996 or Brandenburger and Nalebuff 2021). As stated by Jacobides, Cennamo, and Gawer (2018, 2261): “What sets ecosystems apart from market-based arrangements is that end customers choose from a set of producers or complementors who are bound together through some interdependencies.”

3 The Challenges of Ecosystem Governance

As highlighted by both academics (e.g. Rietveld and Schilling 2020 or Jacobides, Cennamo, and Gawer 2018) and practitioners (e.g. Pidun, Reeves, and Schlüssler 2020), ineffective governance of ecosystems is considered one of the main reasons for failure in creating, developing and, in particular, maintaining ecosystems. This was confirmed by Moore (1993), such that the nature of ecosystems, and hence the challenges that come with them, differ by the stage of the ecosystem evolution. In line with Moore’s four stages, i.e. birth, expansion, leadership, and self-renewal, we shall apply the FACE lifecycle model (Hilb 2020b) to describe the eight primary challenges in ecosystem governance:

Formation stage

a.Matching challenge: The initial challenge of building an ecosystem is to identify parties that can contribute to it and match the different interests. As none of the players usually knows all potential partners, this process is often iterative.

b.Alpha animal challenge: Even if all the key parties are identified and assembled, there is often a tendency that many players want to take the lead. As ecosystems only can live with one Orchestrator, the different actors need to find the most suitable role which may not be that of the Orchestrator.

[17] Acceleration stage

a.Access challenge: As ecosystems evolve and grow, future expansion will depend on new parties becoming involved. This may lead to a rebalancing of power structures among existing actors if, for example, direct competitors join the ecosystem.

b.Consensus challenge: This creates the next challenge, i.e. defining and agreeing on common access rules as the ecosystem grows. As some parties may get stronger from developing the ecosystem, this may reduce the influence of other actors. This can make it difficult to reach consensus.

Consolidation stage

a.Self-interest challenge: As ecosystems start consolidating, the interests of each party return to the center stage. While the focus in the growth phase is to grow the pie, sharing the pie becomes central in the consolidation phase. This may lead to a number of challenges for finding agreement among all parties.

b.Benefit challenge: At the same time, the question about who benefits becomes a contentious issue as rules need to be defined about how to share the profit in the future. Some players may not agree and join other ecosystems instead.

Exit or Energization stage

a.Priority challenge: At some point, the players involved must decide whether the ecosystem has reached its expiry date or whether it is worth being rejuvenated. Here, the priorities among the actors may differ, and not all parties may be willing to remain a part of the game.

b.Commitment challenge: At this point, the true commitment of all parties involved is tested. Have they viewed the ecosystem mainly as a project to explore and develop capabilities, or are they committed to staying for the long term? The answer to this question may differ among the parties involved.