MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Strategically Engaging With Innovation Ecosystems

Competitive pressure to innovate is driving companies to seek new ideas well beyond their own walls. But sponsoring the occasional hackathon or having one-off, uncoordinated interactions with a startup accelerator won’t contribute much to boosting an organization’s innovation capabilities. Many companies are missing an opportunity that’s close to home by overlooking or failing to effectively tap innovation ecosystems in their regions.

These ecosystems occur where innovation and entrepreneurship activity are highly concentrated. As we define them, ecosystems are places that engage five stakeholder types — research institutions, entrepreneurs, corporations, investors, and governments — linked by a strong social fabric of mutual interest, complementary needs and resources, and trust. (See “Complementary Stakeholders in Innovation Ecosystems.”)

About the Author

Philip Budden is a senior lecturer on technological innovation, entrepreneurship, and strategic management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Fiona Murray is associate dean for innovation and inclusion at the MIT Sloan School of Management, the William Porter (1967) Professor of Entrepreneurship at MIT Sloan, an associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and director of MIT’s new Innovation HQ (iHQ).