Reflections on Hannah and Eisenhardt’s “How Firms Navigate Cooperation and Competition in Nascent Ecosystems”: Exploring Bottlenecks as a Central Concept in Innovation Ecosystem Theory

by David Clough Industries in an early phase of emergence are steeped with uncertainty. When this is combined with a complex, novel technology, managers face a deeply challenging environment in which to strategize. In an article forthcoming in the Strategic Management Journal, Douglas Hannah and Kathleen Eisenhardt explore the strategies managers used in the emerging US residential solar industry. This industry has the character of an innovation ecosystem: value is created for customers when complementary components are brought together in a system. Managers must jointly determine which components they will produce and how closely they will cooperate with external partners—all while … Continue reading Reflections on Hannah and Eisenhardt’s “How Firms Navigate Cooperation and Competition in Nascent Ecosystems”: Exploring Bottlenecks as a Central Concept in Innovation Ecosystem Theory