Toward a theory of the evolution of business ecosystems : enterprise architectures, competitive dynamics, firm performance & industrial co-evolution

[摘要] (cont.) A theoretical framework is developed which endogenously traces the co-evolution of firms and their industrial environments using their highest-level system properties of form, function and fitness (as reflected in the system sciences of morphology, physiology and ecology), and which embraces the evolutionary processes of variation, selection and retention. The framework captures the path-dependent evolution of heterogeneous populations of enterprise architectures engaged in symbiotic inter-species competition and posits the evolution of dominant designs in enterprise architectures that oscillate deterministically and chaotically between modular and integral states throughout an industry;;s life-cycle. Architectural innovation - at the extended enterprise level - is demonstrated to contribute to the failure of established firms, with causal mechanisms developed to explain tipping points.

[发布机构] Massachusetts Institute of Technology