An innovation ecosystem can add competitive advantages to focal firms and help them win the market with their partners. However, the ecosystem needs to evolve as the environment changes. There are few studies focusing on how the architecture of innovation ecosystem evolves and how firms accomplish this evolution through appropriate strategies of leveraging complementors. The main purpose of this study is to explore the evolutionary process of ecosystem under both radical and incremental technological changes based on a single case study and a patent analysis of IBM. From the innovation ecosystem perspective, we find that the ecosystem architecture is becoming more complicated when transforming from a single-hub to a multi-hub form via sharing patents of IBM. We also find that IBM has advanced its ecosystem as well as leveraged complementary technologies mainly by technological collaboration, mergers and acquisition (M&A), but the emphases of leverage strategies are varying along with distinct technological changes. Moreover, IBM would help the complementors co-evolve with the developing ecosystem. This study is expected to contribute to the literature of strategy and innovation ecosystem and provide firms with implicating guidance to survive and grow in a time of technology turbulence.

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公司如何通过重新设计创新生态系统来应对技术变革的挑战——IBM案例研究

创新生态系统可以为重点企业增加竞争优势，并帮助他们与合作伙伴赢得市场。但是，生态系统需要随着环境的变化而发展。很少有研究关注创新生态系统的体系结构如何演变以及企业如何通过利用互补因子的适当策略来实现这种进化。这项研究的主要目的是基于单个案例研究和IBM的专利分析，探索在激进和渐进的技术变革下生态系统的演化过程。从创新生态系统的角度来看，我们发现，通过共享IBM专利从单集线器形式转变为多集线器形式时，生态系统架构变得越来越复杂。我们还发现，IBM主要通过技术合作，并购（M＆A）改进了其生态系统和杠杆补充技术，但是杠杆策略的重点随技术变化而变化。而且，IBM将帮助补充者与发展中的生态系统共同发展。这项研究有望为战略和创新生态系统的文献做出贡献，并为公司提供在技术动荡时期生存和发展的有意义的指导。