Читать книгу Innovation Economics, Engineering and Management Handbook 1 - Группа авторов - Страница 48

Marshall (1885) is the essential reference in terms of territorial economy. “Industrial districts” and “industrial atmosphere” have long been part of the vocabulary of economists. But beyond a kind of alchemy supposed to operate between the territory (having a set of resources) and the entrepreneurs (with other stakeholders, such as the State, consumers, workers), the question arises of the nature of these synergistic relations and the modalities of their realization. These synergistic relations are materialized by exchanges of goods and services, raw materials, semi-finished products, technologies, knowledge, workers, etc. by a common vision that is shared by all, orchestrated by a pivotal firm. This territorial space is also homogeneous by virtue of the economic activities that develop there. In the same vein, Perroux (1950) distinguishes between commonplace and economic spaces. The “banal space” is defined in the geographical sense of the term; the economic space is defined at the level of the firm (generally large) that organizes and structures it. It also acts as a sort of force field between different actors. Under these conditions, Perroux breaks with the model of pure and perfect competition by developing the principle of a hierarchical market organization. Moreover, the exceptional success of certain sites, such as Silicon Valley, has also raised questions for researchers. Porter’s (1990) answer is that of the “cluster”, which has since been widely adopted by the scientific community, which he defines summarily as a group of firms and associated institutions linked by common elements and complementarities.

The BE (Moore 1993, 1996) forms a part of this trajectory of thought by sketching a new conception of competition: the (pivotal) firm organizes and structures the market in which it is positioned. In biology, the ecosystem is in fact a group formed by a community of living beings interacting with its environment. Its components develop a dense network of dependencies, exchanges, energy, information and various materials that enable life to be maintained and developed. The major interest of the ecosystem is to build a bridge between the micro and the macro (Roundy et al. 2018). Indeed, systemic analysis allows us to dissect the different components of a complex problem by highlighting nonlinear relationships. In spite of the criticisms made, the biological metaphor is not superficial; it cannot be reduced, as is often the case, to the image of a self-regulating system. Whether it is a biological or an entrepreneurial ecosystem, in both cases, it is necessary for an external actor to intervene to support this process of self-regulation, through appropriate public policy measures (Kuckertz 2019). For Moore (1993, 1996), the analogy with biology and the theory of evolution is obvious. It mobilizes all the tools of biological analysis. He even goes so far as to formulate the idea of an “ecology of competition” to explain that the survival of a firm depends on its capacity to evolve in its ecosystem, questioning itself in view of the transformation of its environment. A BE, like a biological ecosystem, is born, develops and transforms itself by adapting to new contingencies. Moore questions the nature of the relationship between the market and the firm by including a wide variety of actors, such as companies, the State, consumers and trade unions. The BE is an economic community supported by the interaction between a pivotal firm and different stakeholders. This community produces goods and services by bringing value to consumers. Over time, the skills and roles of the different stakeholders co-evolve and align their behavior with the pivotal firm (or several pivotal firms). The idea of co-evolution among BE stakeholders is widely favored. These companies will have a leadership role that can evolve over time. The function of the ecosystem leader is to bring value to the community, as they will engage stakeholders to act with a shared vision to adapt their investments and find mutually supportive roles. Moore thus favors cooperative relationships over competitive ones. The BE-based analysis shows that companies are not isolated entities, but develop their own strategies based on relationships of complementarity, cooperation and competition. These interactions, in turn, foster the creation and development of common skills and resources, sources of sustainable competitive advantages. A BE does not necessarily take place in a given geographical space; the stakeholders that make it up may be geographically close or distant.