How to succeed in the ecosystem game

Executive Summary This project focuses on the Business Finland innovation program 2020 challenge 2: How to build global business ecosystems in Finland. Prior research offers evidence that successful business ecosystem often emerge from well-managed innovation ecosystems. Therefore, the purpose of the project is to increase understanding on creating and managing innovation ecosystems. The project takes a multi-stakeholder, cross-disciplinary and multi-level approach to studying the identified gap in research and practice of innovation ecosystem management and appreciation of the contextual factors in ecosystem maturity process. The team will engage with various actors of multiple ecosystems that provide a view on diverse interests, timeframes for action and even problem understanding for a holistic framework for understanding the management dynamics, creation processes, underlying currents and institutional structures present in innovation ecosystem operations. The findings are benchmarked with international best practice cases and data on national ecosystems. The project will propose action oriented set of guidelines with illustrative real life examples for creation of effective, sustainable and global by default ecosystems in Finland. Results are disseminated effectively through the partner networks for maximal impact and utilization. This includes presentations towards the Finnish ecosystem stakeholders, online resources and webinars, as well as publication and promotion of selected content and insight in public access online. Key words: Ecosystem management Dynamics, Ecosystem Strategies, Exploitation and Scalability