Prerequisites for Value Co-Creation in Business Ecosystems

Business ecosystems have recently attracted a growing interest. Scholars are working on various approaches to describe actors, their relationships, and the implications of this dynamic organizational structure. Value co-creation among these interdependent actors, including customers, based on shared technologies, standards, and rules leads to the emergence of ecosystems. Using the design science research (DSR) approach, this paper presents and evaluates propositions for value co-creation leading to the emergence of business ecosystems. They provide structuring guidelines for academic research and build the basis for the design of a model aiming to explain the actors’ collaborative activities of value co-creation in ecosystems.