An integrated view of ecosystem emergence – A systematic review of structure, processes and outputs

The ecosystem concept has gained increased attention in strategy, innovation, entrepreneurship, and marketing literature. Yet there is little understanding of how ecosystems emerge and their specific processes, mechanisms, and outputs. Firms need to better understand the ecosystem emergence dynamics to decide the ecosystem strategies they need to pursue. We conducted a systematic literature review on ecosystem emergence comprising 120 articles across management disciplines to address this gap. The paper contributes to the literature on strategy and innovation by highlighting the differences and similarities of structure, processes, and outputs across strategy and innovation, entrepreneurship and regional development and marketing. We also observe two different perspectives on entrepreneurial ecosystems in terms of output. An integrated view to examine the ecosystem emergence is proposed by highlighting the research gaps.