Actors’ Activities, and Interactions in Innovation Ecosystems: A Systematic Literature Review and Typology

In innovation ecosystems, actors from various industries co-create innovations within a complementary and modular architecture. Due to the uniqueness of any innovation ecosystem, research, specifically on actors, is context-specific, posing challenges in generalising results. To address this challenge, and to advance the understanding of actors and the underlying mechanisms influencing them, we conducted a systematic literature review. We identify and analyse 81 peer-reviewed articles on actors in innovation ecosystems, that we organise in a research framework. By doing so, we synthesise literature, provide a comprehensive overview of internal- and external-factors on organizational- and ecosystem-level influencing actors in innovation ecosystems, and identify outcomes and performances of this setting. Further, we propose a typology of actors in innovation ecosystems in terms of the interplay of their activities. By critically evaluating current literature, we determine gaps of knowledge, that hinder a holistic understanding of innovation ecosystems, and offer approaches to address them.