Professor Jacobides wins CBR 2023 ‘Best Article’ Award
California Management Review has awarded Professor Michael Jacobides the prestigious 2023 Best Article Award for his paper, How to Compete When Industries Digitize and Collide: An Ecosystem Development Framework.
As industry boundaries dissolve and digitalisation grows, ecosystems are becoming increasingly important. In this 2022 paper (California Management Review, Volume 64, Issue 3, May 2022) Professor Jacobides observes that for all the excitement and “Big-Tech envy”, there is little guidance for how to create ecosystems. He asks, how should a firm best engage? Should it become a partner to someone else’s ecosystem, or build its own? Should it focus on a broad range of digitally connected services, or narrow down? How should we think about ecosystem value proposition, governance, and complementor choice? Moreover, what is the case for investment in ecosystems?
Drawing on recent research and projects with leading firms, the article offers a framework for understanding, engaging in, and building business ecosystems.
Each year, California Management Review recognises the article published during the preceding year that has made the most important contribution to management practice. This article was selected as a finalist based on its performance and distribution, and the final selection was made by members of the California Management Review Editorial Board in April 2023.
The California Management Review editorial board said that Professor Jacobides’ article is rich both conceptually and empirically, adding, “It offers very clear conceptualization of ecosystems (e.g., multi-product vs. multi-actor, and as distinct from platforms) and provides many helpful illustrations. It is empirically strong, and is written in a highly accessible way for a wider managerial audience. In addition, it walks through a series of choices that any firm/team must make in deciding whether and how to engage in ecosystem-level integration.”
Speaking about his award, Professor Jacobides said that digitally enabled ecosystems are a vital part of the modern business landscape. “They open the door to new customers and markets, and broaden and enhance a firm’s value proposition. Yet despite all the justified excitement over ecosystems, many companies are still feeling their way around an ecosystem strategy. Helping to provide understanding and guidance on this important topic is, for me, the value of this article and it is gratifying that its importance has received recognition from the California Management Review”.
Published at the University of California for more than sixty years, California Management Review serves as a source of evidence-based research that inspires, informs, and empowers stewards of modern organizations. We disseminate ideas that engage scholars, educate students, and contribute to the practice of management.
The Sir Donald Gordon Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation and Professor of Strategy at London Business School, Professor Jacobides has received the Sloan Foundation Award, regularly appeared in the top academic journals such as SMJ, AMJ, AMR, OrgSci, California Business Review, and Industrial & Corporate Change, where he is a co-Editor. He studies industry evolution, value migration, firm boundaries and organization design. His recent work has shed light on the emergence and development of digital platforms and ecosystems and has looked at the strategic and policy issues this raises.
