Oxygenating Innovation? The Not-So-Brave New World of COVID-19?

Abstract

Scaling value propositions as if stakeholders finally matter. Why is it that while COVID has imposed possibly the most VUCA: volatility (V), uncertainty (U), complexity (C) and ambiguity (A) in recent memory, many new and small firms are nonetheless scaling? What has COVID forced us to learn—or re-learn? Everywhere we turn, we hear about “Industry 4.0” where industry players and stakeholders make up a complex, dynamic web of relationships, facilitated by ever-proliferating open innovation models and a recognition that linear relationships have given way to complex, dynamic ecosystems that require multilateral engagement (e.g., Müller et al., Technological Forecasting & Social Change 132:2–17, 2018). Alas, the dominant models for innovation systems remain firmly focused on institutional players too often to the exclusion of the innovators themselves. We need to understand that innovation communities are an ecosystem. This essay introduces the reader to what we might call the “ecosystem mindset.”