Sub-Plenary 2-3

Organizing Industries, Ecosystems, and Markets:
Between Legacy and Imagination

 

Friday, July 7, 2023, 16:00–17:30 CEST

Campus Ingegneria | Via Marengo 2 | 09123 Cagliari
Building D, floor 0, room: Magna

Organizers:
Paolo Aversa, City, University of London, United Kingdom
Elona Marku, University of Cagliari, Italy

Chair:
Paolo Aversa, City, University of London, United Kingdom
 
Panelists:
Shaz Ansari, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
Carmelo Cennamo, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
Mahka Moeen, University of North Carolina, USA
Pinar Ozcan, University of Oxford, University of Oxford, United Kingdom
 

The aim of this sub-plenary is to engage the audience in a thoughtful reflection about these new scenarios, discuss possible ways in which former research and legacy approaches can help us make sense of these new trends, and identify new, imaginative avenues for future research to understand and theorize about industries, ecosystems, and markets.
The sub-plenary will feature a group of expert international scholars which have extensively investigated the topics. The goal is to bring together some regular members of the EGOS community with other scholars less familiar, which, despite internationally renowned and working on highly complementary topics, have been less exposed to the EGOS community.

Industries are traditionally defined as a group of organizations producing and commercializing products or services that are close substitutes (Gort & Klepper, 1982; Porter ,1990). They can be globally distributed or geographically clustered (Marshall, 1890; Krugman 1991). Industries emerge from three main triggers: scientific discoveries, unmet user needs, and grand societal challenges (Agarwal et al., 2017). The emergence of industries has represented a source of innovation and welfare for societies, has reshaped consumption habits, and characterized significant evolution in the history of humankind (Munir et al., 2021).
 
Yet, they have also posed new policy and managerial challenges, created negative externalities for the environment, and disrupted markets populated by formerly flourishing incumbents. Industry emergence thus often witnesses the intervention or non-market stakeholders, such as movements, institutions, and regulators (Gurses & Ozcan, 2015; Aversa et al., 2022). While scholars have extensively tackled drivers and effects of industry emergence, recent phenomena affecting societies on a global scale have challenged scholars and practitioners alike to re-consider what we know on industries, and how these can evolve to respond to grand societal challenges (Agarwal et al., , 2022).
 
Phenomena such as global warming, migrations, wars, social conflicts, pandemics, have challenged indistries to re-think their nature, activities, and competitive approach, as well as the way in which firms create, deliver, and capture value – thus combining legacy approaches with novel, imaginative solutions. Companies and industries have recently been called into action to collectively combine their business objectives with purposes to support community resilience and progress, social equality and inclusion, climate change and preservation of biodiversity. The fast-paced and interdependent nature of technological development, the pervasiveness of digitalization and the related rising complexity have provided both challenges and opportunities to firms and policy makers. Scholars have suggested that understanding the growing complexity that binds together the success and failure of various interrelated organizations requires a broader lens on industries, accounting even more than before for partnerships, network, relations, thus expanding our approach to broader ecosystems of market and non-market actors (Adner & Kapoor, 2010; Jacobides et al., 2018).

References

Adner, R., & Kapoor, R. (2010): “Value creation in innovation ecosystems: how the structure of technological interdependence affects firm performance in new technology generations.” Strategic Management Journal, 31 (3), 306–333.
Agarwal, R., Kim, S., & Moeen, M. (2021): “Leveraging Private enterprise: incubation of new industries to address the public sector’s mission-oriented grand challenges.” Strategy Science, 6 (4), 385–411.
Agarwal, R., Moeen, M., & Shah, S.K. (2017): “Athena’s birth: Triggers, actors, and actions preceding industry inception.” Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 11 (3), 287–305.
Ashraf, N., Pinkse, J., & Ahmadsimab, A. (2017): “From Animosity to Affinity: The Interplay of Competing Logics and Interdependence in Cross-Sector Partnerships.” Journal of Management Studies, 54 (6), 793–822.
Aversa, P., Huyghe, A., & Bonadio, G. (2021): “First Impressions Stick: Market Entry Strategies and Category Priming in the Digital Domain.” Journal of Management Studies, 58 (7), 1721–1760.
Gort, M., & Klepper, S. (1982): “Time paths in the diffusion of product innovations.” The Economic Journal, 92 (367), 630–653.
Gurses, K., & Ozcan, P. (2015): “Entrepreneurship in regulated markets: framing contests and collective action to introduce pay TV in the US.” Academy of Management Journal, 58 (6), 1709–1739.
Jacobides, M.G., Cennamo, C., & Gawer, A. (2018): “Towards a theory of ecosystems.” Strategic Management Journal, 39 (8), 2255–2276.
Krugman, P.R. (1991): Geography and Trade. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Marshall, A. (1890): Principles of Economics. London: MacMillan.
Munir, K., Ansari, S., & Brown, D. (2021): “From Patañjali to the ‘gospel of sweat’: Yoga’s remarkable transformation from a sacred movement into a thriving global market.” Administrative Science Quarterly, 66 (3), 854–899.
Porter, M.E. (1990): Competitive Advantage of Nations. Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance. New York: The Free Press.
 

Shaz Ansari is Professor of Strategy & Innovation at Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom. His research interests related to institutional processes and diffusion of practices; social and environmental issues, technological and management innovations; value creation and new market development; offshoring and outsourcing, reputation management, and bottom-of-the-pyramid strategies.
 
Paolo Aversa is Professor of Strategy at Bayes Business School, City, University of London, United Kingdom. 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. Paolo serves as associate editor at Journal of Management Studies, and guest editor at Academy of Management Discoveries.
 
Carmelo Cennamo is Professor with special responsibilities of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. His research interests span across digital platforms, digital markets, ecosystems; he studies how firms manage their interdependent activities and how they try to shape the business context where these activities take place to gain competitive advantage. Carmelo served as guest editor at Academy of Management Discoveries.

Elona Marku is an Assistant Professor qualified as an Associate Professor of Management at the University of Cagliari, Italy. Her research primarily focuses on the management of technology and innovation, and the implications of these for organizational performance. Current projects delve into the dynamics related to the emergence of ecosystems and the diffusion of emerging technologies.

Mahka Moeen is Associate Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship and Sarah Graham Kenan Scholar at the Kenan-Flagler Business School, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, USA. Her research focuses on how firms and entrepreneurs create and enter nascent industries. In studying the co-evolution of entrepreneurial firms and nascent industries, she is particularly in strategies that firms undertake during early industry stages and even prior to the first ever commercialization within an industry context. Mahka serves as senior editor at Organization Science.
 
Pinar Ozcan is Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, United Kingdom. Her research interests relate to strategy and entrepreneurship in technology markets. Pinar’s current research includes the open banking project, where she examines the industry disruption in banking through regulation and entry of fintechs, and the development of the sharing economy. She serves as associate editor at Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal.