Despite their importance little is known about how innovation ecosystems come into existence. We address this gap through an historical case study Herceptin, a revolutionary drug developed for the treatment of ovarian and breast cancer, and the innovation ecosystem that emerged around this drug between 1978 and 1998. Through qualitative content analysis of a broad scope of archival documents (2474 in total), we define a cast of roles and determine their timing of entry onto the stage of ecosystem emergence, and in turn describe the interaction of these roles that govern emergence. We find that the locus of ecosystem emergence shifts gradually from discovery, resource provision and commitment, to the formation of connections and trust, and finally to complementarity and value creation. These activities are facilitated by specific roles that gain significance at various points in time. We additionally witness shifts in interaction dynamics, from individual level interactions early on, to interactions across levels, and finally to interactions at the organisational level. We synthesize these findings to propose a framework of a processual understanding of how innovation ecosystems come into existence.@en

This conceptual paper extends the traditional view of disruptive change, which considers the effects of rivalry between an incumbent and new entrant firm, by examining the impact of disruption upon the ‘innovation ecosystem’ in its entirety – the group of organisations that collaborate in creating a holistic value proposition for the end-user. Following Adner’s “ecosystem-as-structure” perspective, we develop propositions that anticipate structural differences between incumbent and disruptive innovation ecosystems, and then review these propositions in the context of three historical, disruptive innovation cases; Bakelite (a synthetic plastic), microwave oven, and photocopier. Through these cases, we illustrate that the manner of innovation ecosystem reconfiguration is likely to depend on the design attributes of the product, as well as the type of disruption experienced. We conclude by reflecting upon contemporary cases of disruption enabled through digital technologies, and proposing a framework that can guide future research.@en

Despite accounting for a very small percentage of the population that adopts an innovation, the 'innovators' and 'early adopters' - representing the two earliest groups of individuals to acquire the new product or service - play a crucial role in the dissemination of the innovation to larger market segments. The objective of this paper is to understand the characteristics of these individuals that positively influence their decisions to adopt innovations. We argue that awareness of these traits will enable firms to attain speedier uptake of their offerings while aiding policymakers achieve quicker and wider proliferation of new technologies intended for societal benefit. We undertake a review of the literature studying the diffusion of innovations and show future directions that this framework should take to analyse the adoption lifecycle.@en

Linkage between science, engineering and technology creates and develops an academic program which includes a broad function from basic research to management of products and processes, called Technology and Innovation Management (TIM), with the aim of knowledge creation within innovation networks and subsequently, to advance humanities and develop economy. Nevertheless, given the relatively nascent nature of the TIM field, especially with respect to more established disciplines such as engineering, the occupations available to the individual actors of technical innovation networks remain unknown. As a preliminary step to addressing this gap, we identified individuals in innovation network employed in the Eindhoven province of the Netherlands, and studied what type of activities in their occupational movement they undertook. Further, we studied their linked-in profiles, which in many additional cases provides more useful information of the same type. The study results show an occupational movement typology that contains three types of paths available to the individuals - single, dual, and hybrid - pronounced by technical, managerial, entrepreneurial, consultancy, and academic occupations. The results reveal that more than half of the target sample follow a hybrid occupational movements, underlined primarily by technical activities across their work histories. We conclude our paper with implications for future research.

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