Think like a ship: business ecosystems and human well-being

The ecosystem concept, borrowed from natural sciences, helps social scientists study organizations, economic regions, and the complex relationships between organizations and people. However, these discussions often fail to consider the normative aspects and values inherent in social systems. Meanwhile, the ecosystem services concept, developed within the natural sciences, assesses how ecological systems contribute to human well-being, enhancing their perceived, experienced, and economic value to society. Our paper uniquely integrates theory and research in the natural and organizational sciences to examine the limitations of current ecosystems metaphors applied to understand organizations and economic regions. Compelled by worldwide urgency surrounding sustainability and the role of organizations therein, we develop the case for emphasizing human well-being impacts via a proposed construct we term “business ecosystems services,” accompanied by an analysis of ecosystem contributions to human well-being and research questions to propel the field forward. This framing advances ecosystem theory in organizational studies while foregrounding the societal consequences of business ecosystems for human well-being.