Service Ecosystems Innovation in Systemic Perspective: Transitions and Coevolutions

Service ecosystems refer to such complex service systems that are self-adjusting systems of resource-integrating actors, connected by shared institutional logics and mutual value creation through service exchange with an emphasis on dynamic features like adaptation, viability, and sustainability. In this chapter, focusing especially on social innovation, we first analyze service ecosystems by adopting Panarchy and Transition Management Theory in a systemic perspective. Panarchy is a framework for analyzing ecosystems developed to account for the dual, often conflicting, characteristics of all complex systems, i.e., stability and change. Transition Management Theory has attracted attention as a framework to study the governance of social systems for sustainability. Based on the analysis, we identify adaptive transitions, phase transitions, and coevolution in service ecosystems innovation and derive a Systemic Innovation Model of Service Ecosystem. It describes dynamic behavior of service ecosystems innovation in a comprehensive way. Finally, we illustrate our model by applying it to the paradigmatic changes concerning the nature of the public sector.