Integrating research on interorganizational networks and ecosystems

Abstract

Organizations are simultaneously embedded in interorganizational networks and ecosystems, yet research on networks and ecosystems developed in isolation. The aim of this partial integration is to bring new energy into maturing research on organizational networks and greater structure to the burgeoning research on ecosystems. In this article, we underlie similarities and differences between networks and ecosystems; bring the ecosystems’ focus on modularity and complementarity at the forefront of interorganizational research while enriching ecosystems’ scholarship with systematic applications of network analytic tools to map the patterns of component interdependencies.