A Model of Evolution of a Collaborative Business Ecosystem Influenced by Performance Indicators

Abstract

The materialization of the 4th Industrial Revolution needs to emphasize the role of collaboration. Traditional business ecosystems have evolved to hyper-connected organizations facing more advanced collaboration models, dynamic networks, and more complex smart systems. Emerging collaborative aspects in this context need to be identified, and tools developed to help organizations coping with changing environment, market, and societal needs. As such, an assessment model is proposed to measure the expected self-adjustment of organizations in a collaborative business ecosystem, induced by performance indicators, in order to improve the organizations themselves and the ecosystem as a whole. Organizations with distinct profiles, categorized by classes of responsiveness, respond differently to the collaboration opportunities they may receive, or are more likely to invite others to collaborate. This behaviour is expected to be influenced by the variation in importance (weight) of each specific performance indicator adopted in a given business ecosystem, as the organizations, like individuals, tend to evolve according to how they are evaluated. To assess the proposed approach, an experiment has been set up using a simulation model based on system dynamics and agents. Preliminary results, based on a number of relevant scenarios, are presented and discussed.