Making research on sustainable ecosystems more productive: An essay by a design science advocate

Recent studies of ecosystems have generated important theoretical insights into how multiple actors can collaborate to address major sustainability challenges. However, few scholars have been able to create real impact in terms of new ecosystem practices, tools, or other artifacts. Almost all research on (sustainable) ecosystems is largely descriptive and explanatory in nature. This generates a deep understanding of how extant ecosystems address sustainability challenges, but also undermines the capability to (co)create real changes. In this essay, I therefore make a case for adopting design science (DS), as a generic methodology, in the quest for actionable knowledge and solutions which advance the practice as well as theory of ecosystems. The DS approach is illustrated with the development of the Ecosystem Pie Model (EPM), a tool for mapping and analyzing innovation ecosystems. The EPM project demonstrates that the direct engagement of DS research with practice helps to weed out unproductive lines of thinking about ecosystems, especially those that cannot be operationalized into actionable tools. Moreover, it implies an innovation ecosystem is best defined as a collaboration between interdependent actors searching for a shared value proposition that any actor alone cannot accomplish.