A new perspective for management
We are now in the process of bringing the “ecosystems” theme to life for the Drucker Forum 2019. How real are business ecosystems and what do they mean for the practice of management?

We are all familiar with the idea of ecosystems in the natural world – defined in 1932 by British biologist Arthur Tansley as localized communities of living organisms interacting with each other and their particular environment of air, water, mineral soil and other elements. These organisms influence each other, and their terrain; they compete and collaborate, share and create resources, and co-evolve; and they are inevitably subject to external disruption, to which they adapt together.

Much of this fundamental thinking was coopted to conceptualise business ecosystems as fluid coalitions of interacting organisations and individuals, including suppliers, lead producers, integrators, competitors and other stakeholders, in which companies holding leadership roles may change over time.

Business ecosystems can take a variety of shapes and forms such as innovation ecosystems, platforms and clusters. Digital technology is turbo-charging such formations.

Here is a first set of links for further reading:

James Moore
Predators and Prey: A New Ecology of Competition

Jack Fuller, Michael Jacobides and Martin Reeves
The Myths and Realities of Business Ecosystems

Christian Sarkar and Philip Kotler
The Innovation Ecosystem – New Rules for the Future

 

We are today launching the 2019 Drucker Forum Series on Harvard Business Review (HBR.org) - read the starter article by Richard Straub. We encourage you to comment online and communicate posts to your network. HBR will host 10–15 further articles from speakers at the Drucker Forum in the run-up to the conference in November.

In parallel, we welcome brief contributions to the discussion on the Drucker Forum blog. We invite you to send your comments (no more than 500 words, please!) on specific issues outlined in the Introduction to the 2019 Drucker Forum to info@druckersociety.eu, for editorial review. We will communicate all accepted posts via social media (Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram, Facebook), using the two hashtags #ecosystems and #GPDF19

With best regards and wishes
The Peter Drucker Forum Team