The emergence of adaptive ecosystems: the role of value propositions

Lunch Seminar in presence

Paolo Aversa
Bayes Business School, UK

Abstract
Using value propositions to align various actors in adaptive ecosystems – i.e., those characterized by very diverse market and non-market stakeholders – poses rising challenges to orchestrators. Yet, it is still unclear how this complex alignment occurs. This study investigates the emergence and evolution of the Formula E ecosystem to theorize a four-phase process on how an orchestrator can progressively align different stakeholders around a new value proposition. We detail the pattern by which the orchestrator changes the business model and the technology of the emerging ecosystem to resolve the critical trade-off between financial sustainability and technological innovation. This is achieved by initially adopting innovative ecosystem arrangements that attract new stakeholders, but later-on reconverging towards traditional ones to develop the necessary technological innovation. This, however, triggers a shakeout of those stakeholders that originally allowed the emergence of the ecosystem. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Paolo Aversa is Full Professor of Strategy at Bayes Business School, City, University of London, where he served as Director of the Full Time MBA (2017-2021). His research concentrates on innovation and the evolution of industries and ecosystems. He focuses on technology-intensive settings to explore radical innovations, digital transformation, and business models. He is one of the main voices in the use of sports data for management research, and globally considered one of the leading academic experts in the motorsport and Formula 1 industry.
His works are published in Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, Research Policy, Journal of Management, Journal of Management Studies, among others. He serves as Associate Editor of Journal of Management Studies, in the editorial board of Organization Science and Academy of Management Discoveries, for which he is also guest-editing a special issue on “Exploring the Modern Organizational Context Through the Lens of Sports.” He is Director of Communications and appointed officer of the Strategic Management (STR) Division of the Academy of Management. He received around 20 international awards for his research, teaching, and education. In 2018 Poets & Quants included him in the list of the “World’s Best 40 under 40 Professors.”

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