What Are the Benefits and Pitfalls of Innovation Ecosystems?

Lessons Learned From Tungsram’s Ecosystem

Abstract

Whereas innovation ecosystems became widely popular lately, our knowledge is quite limited on the practical implementation of the relevant ecosystem models, specifically in Hungary. Hence, the aim of this paper is to analyse an innovation ecosystem as a case study related to one of the biggest Hungarian multinational company, called Tungsram. The research is considered to be a qualitative research, as the methodology incorporates document analysis and 26 semi-structured interviews with the ecosystem’s participants. The results show that the main benefits of participating in ecosystems are: new value creation by resource and knowledge sharing, networking and minimizing the cost of innovation. Meanwhile, the pitfalls of cooperation are closely related to the credibility of the ecosystem leader, to the formulation of the ecosystem’s strategy and to the quality of the absorptive capacity of the partners.