On superclusters and ecosystems
by Christian Rangen

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Innovation superclusters and innovative ecosystems are both crucial engines of growth. In our research, we have looked into future trends and how governments can actively build both types of entity. Superclusters vs ecosystems Globally, there are estimated to be around 7,000 formal innovation clusters. The EU alone has close to 3,000 entities. Countries such as Denmark and Norway have around 40 each. Out of the global total, between 15 and 25 may be recognized as genuine innovation superclusters. While regional clusters, anchored in theories of agglomeration economics and local industry analysis have been recocgnized since at least the late 1980s, our understanding of superclusters is just emerging. These initiatives are large, national-level innovation programs, built […]

Building Effective Ecosystems for the Future 2 blogs on current and future thinking:
2. Natural versus linear thinking: challenges and pitfalls
by Bill Fischer and Simone Cicero

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In the first blog we discussed where we might find ecosystems and the issues of leading in this type of environment. Now we show examples and explore challenges in new ways of thinking. Putting Darwin in the Strategists’ Seat Management currently means to lead and direct, and strategy is choosing the direction. But in ecosystems, where diverse members tend to have value-objectives that are different to one another, any effort at organization, much less direction, alarms the community. Ecosystems work best when they maximize chance idea-collisions based upon first-hand knowledge of market dynamics, and where both entities might come out better off as a result. Any suspicion that one partner is trying to control such […]

Building Effective Ecosystems for the Future 2 blogs on current and future thinking:
1. Issues caused by current thinking
by Bill Fischer and Simone Cicero

Posted on guestLeave a commentPosted in 11th Global Peter Drucker Forum

In this first blog we discuss the status quo and how that might have to change. The second blog shows some examples of ecosystems and the journey still to come. Value-chains have been a mainstay of organizational strategy; they are designed for reliability, and a well-run value-chain will inevitably reduce operational surprise, but they are also linear and therefore slow and limited in how they respond to a fast changing environment. Ecosystems however, with many possible partners self-defining how they might interact, are better suited for novelty than for routine, and can be perfect when new ideas or experimentation are required. Drucker Forum 2019 This article is one in the “shape the debate” series relating […]

Why leaders should be interested in biology: three things we can learn from ants
by Claudia Crummenerl

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“In the long history of humankind, those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.” Charles Darwin Drucker Forum 2019 This article is one in the “shape the debate” series relating to the 11th Global Peter Drucker Forum, under the theme “The Power of Ecosystems” taking place on November 21 & 22, 2019 in Vienna, Austria. #GPDF19 #ecosystems Ants have been living on this earth for millions of years – and the key to their long survival comes from their being part of an ecosystem and not acting as lone fighters. All ecosystem members are connected to and dependent on each other. Collaboration and combining individual competencies are the ants’ secret recipe for […]

Regime shift – getting Ecosystems back on track
by Andrew Want

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Society ascribes legitimacy to ecosystems. When ecosystems cannot meet societal expectations, they, and the firms within, deteriorate (h/t Simon Caulkin). A regime shift is a process whereby a change in the structure and function of an ecosystem will result. Regime shifts are critical for ecosystem evolution and maintenance of societal legitimacy. Drucker Forum 2019 This article is one in the “shape the debate” series relating to the 11th Global Peter Drucker Forum, under the theme “The Power of Ecosystems” taking place on November 21 & 22, 2019 in Vienna, Austria. #GPDF19 #ecosystems Conditions need to be ‘just right’ for a regime shift to occur. This blog considers the mobility ecosystem that could indicate such conditions. […]

The Ecosystem of Wicked Problems by Christian Sarkar

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As humanity faces a growing number of existential challenges, we find that governments and institutions are not doing their jobs – they are failing us precisely at the moment we need them most. The apocalypse has many horsemen: social unrest, inequality, environmental collapse, species extinction, pandemics, trade wars, and yes, old-fashioned war. Even the tired wars of ideology have returned. Let’s start with an observation: We don’t know how to collaborate. Is this true? We aren’t taught to collaborate. Our careers are based on competition, not cooperation. Sometimes our collaborative efforts extend to including our children and relatives in the family business. It’s called nepotism. Just think back to that cross-functional meeting you had where […]

Ecosystems for lifelong learning
By Esther Clark

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“Lifelong learning.” A word cluster that comes up with over 99 million results when searched in Google. It is a popular concept with its central tenet being that we must always be learning in order to adapt to new opportunities or threats and to continue to make way for innovation and connections between ideas and people – past, present, future. It is said that effective leaders have the quality to question, and learn from, people and ideas inside and outside their industry. Leading organizations need to be able to “see around corners”, and lifelong learning helps us to do this by pulling in knowledge from different disciplines and dimensions. While few of us are likely […]

Constructing Ecosystems: More than Analytics
Johan Roos

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Managers often use their strong analytical orientation to make sense of increasingly diverse “big data” to better grasp and envision their company’s ecosystem — customers, technology, competition, and stakeholders interacting in myriad ways. Not surprisingly, the demand for data analytics competence and digital transformation is exploding. But is a sharp analytical mind enough? I, like others, suggest a creative analogue mind is equally necessary. As long ago as the 1930s, Chester Barnard wrote about the importance to leaders of non-logical processes. Donald Schön described in the 1980s how intuition supports more rational, deliberate processes. Daniel Kahneman and others have shown that our beliefs are far from objective and we use all kinds of shortcuts to […]