Toward an Evolutionary and Sustainability Perspective of the Innovation Ecosystem: Revisiting the Panarchy Model

Abstract

This paper proposes an evolutionary and sustainability perspective of the innovation ecosystem. This study revisits the Panarchy model in order to generate new perspectives on the innovation ecosystem. The Panarchy model describes the evolutionary nature of complex adaptive systems relying on four phases, without, however, being deterministic: exploitation, conservation, decline, and reorganization. When ecosystems face important shocks, adaptive mechanisms and properties within the ecosystem lead the ecosystem to a new reorganization phase, which gives birth to another exploitation phase. In this perspective, the innovation ecosystem allows the avoidance of technology lock-ins and structural and organizational rigidity by providing mechanisms to enhance both resilience and competitiveness. Innovation ecosystem sustainability relies on two major dual forces: the exploitative function and the generative or autopoiesis function. Therefore, evolutionary and sustainability perspectives remain the “natural home” for developing works and models about the innovation ecosystem, and instrumental for policy-makers and practitioners involved in innovation management.