Categorizing realist, critical, and pragmatist perspectives on innovation ecosystems: A research agenda and an initial application to artificial intelligence

While discourses on innovation ecosystems have become popular in academia, policy, and practice, they often take place in disciplinary silos and are marked by ambiguity. To address these issues, this research note categorizes the rapidly growing literature on innovation ecosystems into realist, critical, and pragmatist perspectives. It draws out their diverging assumptions about the nature of ecosystems, the impacts of innovation on society, and the role of social scientists in studying innovation ecosystems. Research questions are formulated that aim at exploring these different perspectives and various partial connections between them to create a research agenda. In an initial application of this agenda to artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystems, we concentrate on issues of governance, scaling, and sociotechnical transformation. Our categorization and proposed research agenda enable a deeper understanding of how, why, and to which ends the innovation ecosystem language is used and how social scientists can position themselves in relation to these uses. • Categorizes realist, critical, and pragmatist perspectives on innovation ecosystems. • Highlights assumptions and purposes underpinning these perspectives. • Develops a research agenda for connecting these perspectives. • Presents an initial application of this research agenda to artificial intelligence. • Stimulates innovation ecosystem researchers to reflect on their positioning.