| Strategic Actors | Approach to Innovation Ecosystems | Review article | Number of Citations |
| Farm-Centric Actors: universities, businesses, non-profit organizations, decision makers, government institutions, financial markets, farmers; public sector bias. | Consider the Agricultural Innovation Systems (AIS) approach. They use Innovation Ecosystems thinking to consider ways in which it can enhance efforts to create cross-border, intersectoral, and multi-stakeholder innovation niches that are able to support transitions to sustainable agricultural systems at multiple scales. | | 172 |
| Niche Actors and Multifunctional Group: different Innovation Ecosystems (applying related technologies), Universities, Scientists, NGOs, Associations and Policy makers. | They present a multi-level perspective on the development of the innovation ecosystem that integrates internal alignment and external viability. The article contributes to the literature on innovation ecosystems by explicitly considering the socio-technical viability of the innovation ecosystem around a pioneering innovation. | | 121 |
| System Operators (incumbent service providers), Providers of terminals and base stations, Distributors/Resellers (of terminals) and Users (such as public authorities and private users). | They present a discussion around mobile telecommunications systems. They explain that relationships in innovation ecosystems are rarely symmetrical and asymmetries can change over time. In addition, they highlight the roles of collaborating and competing actors and complementary and substitute technologies in innovation ecosystems. | | 106 |
| University, Industry, Government. | They analyze innovation ecosystems through the lens of the science of complexity, considering them as open non-linear entities, which are characterized by changing multifaceted motivations of networked actors, high receptivity to feedback and persistent structural transformations. They describe the generic properties of innovation ecosystems in terms of the science of complexity, seeing them as complex adaptive systems, especially highlighting the complexity of innovation clusters. | | 85 |
| Entrepreneurial company, Suppliers, Investors, Complementors, Customers. | They argue that the innovation ecosystem provides a useful approach for the management of collective uncertainties, as it helps the entrepreneur in defining the actors that need to be prioritized in the generation of the value cycle. They built a conceptual framework of uncertainty and combined it with the innovation ecosystem approach. This combined approach allowed identifying the key actors in each innovation ecosystem, the decisions and uncertainties associated with the most significant events involving these actors at different times. | | 63 |
| Three main types of partners: multinationals, PMEs and universities. | They explain that open innovation ecosystems involve the transfer of knowledge between various stakeholders to contribute to the innovation of products and services. The results indicate that combinations of knowledge, relationships and organizational characteristics contribute to the success of knowledge transfer between ecosystem actors. | | 58 |
| Organizations, Institutions, Communities, Individuals. | They developed a strategy tool to map, analyze and design (model) innovation ecosystems. The tool also supports managers in the analysis and decision-making process on the ecosystem strategy. In addition, they discuss the interaction of actors in the creation and capture of value. | | 55 |
| National innovation system: Government, Industry (companies), Research Institutes and Universities (public and private), International companies. Sectorial system of innovation and production: firm-type organizations (users, producers and suppliers of inputs); Other organizations (Universities, Financial institutions, Government agencies, Unions or technical associations. | The article focuses on how NASA structures its new innovation policy, moving away from a classic supply-oriented investment in P&D through NASA itself, towards a policy of orchestration and combination of instruments. In this sense, they discuss innovation ecosystems from a multi-actor perspective, a combination of private, non-profit and public actors. In addition, based on the literature, they present differentiations between national, local and sectoral innovation systems. | | 53 |
| Social and technological networks: human and non-human actors; interdependent and heterogeneous actors (suppliers, distributors, competitors, customers, government and other institutions). | They present innovation ecosystems as structures composed of human and non-human actors (technologies). To do so, they analyzed the evolution of an innovation ecosystem in the energy industry. They used the Actor-Network Theory (ANT) to analyze how actors interact with each other, based on their specific interests, and thus configure the ecosystem at its base. The results provide an integrated view of the interaction between technological and social entities and how they affect the dynamics of an innovation ecosystem. | | 40 |
| Intersectoral actors: companies, public organizations, non-profit organizations, knowledge/research institutes and users. | They explain that innovation ecosystems with sustainability goals are made up of cross-sectoral partners and need to manage three tensions: the tension of creating value versus capturing value, the tension of mutual value versus individual value, and the tension of gaining value versus losing value. They propose that innovation ecosystems that develop sustainable business models engage in a valuation process in which they seek results that satisfy all actors. | | 37 |
| Industry and research-based ecosystem actors (Universities, Research Institutions). | They present a vision about innovation ecosystems as structures that allow the co-creation of value by several actors. They highlight the need to encourage the active participation of ecosystem actors in the value co-creation process, as well as support actors in forming new connections and sharing knowledge and resources in a concrete way. They point out that a greater diversity of actors in the ecosystem enhances support for innovation and co-creation of value. | | 37 |
| Research Institutions, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Individuals. | They conceptualize the diffusion of user innovations from a service ecosystem perspective. And they point to the need for research related to the definition of an innovation infrastructure that considers the role and contribution of users in sustainable innovation. The authors propose that an ecosystem perspective contributes with three assumptions that help to better understand the (non)diffusion of sustainability-oriented user innovations: 1) the diffusion of innovations is a phenomenon at various levels and actors; 2) an actor-to-actor orientation integrates innovative users into the ecosystem; 3) the service perspective defines the diffusion of innovation as a co-created evolutionary process. | | 36 |
| Universities, Accelerators, Incubators, Research centers, Technology parks, Small and medium-sized companies. | They sought to know the contribution of training to the creation of new companies, and its role in the processes of innovation and technology transfer, from the perspective of the participants. In this sense, they recognize the importance of the role of Universities in creating synergies between actors in the innovation ecosystem that strengthen social and economic growth. However, they explain that to achieve this growth, it is necessary to define long-term development plans with a clear vision, adequate infrastructure for its implementation and the participation of actors in the innovation ecosystem. | | 34 |
| Voluntary organizations, Social entrepreneurs, Communities, Intermediary agent (connects community and social innovator). | They describe the market and social forces that influence the induction of social innovations through various processes, highlighting the ecosystem for open social innovations as an environment to connect companies and communities. | | 34 |
| Industries, Companies, Communities, Users, Incubators, Innovators. | They trace the evolution of the Open Innovation Theory, studying the different aspects of the relationship between knowledge providers and knowledge seekers that make the system truly reciprocal, responsible and responsive. They explain that when systems become open, the cost of searching for inclusive innovation will automatically fall and the knowledge system will also become more symmetrical and inclusive. They advocate for more reciprocal, respectful and responsible knowledge exchanges between the formal and informal sectors, adding value to the contributions of innovators. | | 32 |