NESTA Crime Online - University of Brighton Repository

2 Digital ecosystem
Innovation studies help us to understand the emerging digital business
ecosystem. The diffusion of information and communication technologies has
facilitated the growth of the environment in which cybercriminals operate.
Changes in the costs of research and development, production and skills, coupled with
rapid technological changes, have been the main drivers behind the globalisation of
company activities. Globalisation in turn has affected their organisation, which can be
seen in the decentralisation of production and innovation activities and the greater
collaboration with external partners. This has led to the growth of business networks,
which are now ubiquitous throughout the economy. 110
The business network has been compared to a biological system because the network is
an ‘organism’ which responds to its environment and thus continually evolves. 111, 112 For
instance, consumer tastes change through time and thus the constituents of the
business network that supplies this particular consumer demand have to react
accordingly to survive or do well.
A business ecosystem is “a loose network of suppliers, distributors and outsourced firms
that work cooperatively and competitively to support new products, satisfy consumer
needs and incorporate innovation”. 113 These entities have different interests but are
110 Corallo, A., Passiante, G., and Prencipe, A., (2007), The Digital Business Ecosystem. Cheltenham: Edward
Elgar (Eds).
111 Rothschild, M. (1990), The Inevitability of Capitalism. Henry Holt: New York, as cited in A. Corallo, G.
Passiante, and A. Prencipe, A. (Eds.). (2007). The Digital Business Ecosystem. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, p.1.
112 Since the 1990s, scholars in innovation studies have increasingly described the business network in terms
of a business ecosystem. See, for example, A. Corallo, A., G. Passiante, A. Prencipe, (2007), The Digital
Business Ecosystem (Eds). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar; Iansiti, M., and Levien, R, (2004), “Strategy as
ecology”. Harvard Business Review, pp68-78; Moore, J. F., (1993), “Predators and prey: a new ecology of
competition.” Harvard Business Review (May-June), pp75-86; M. Rothschild, (1990), The Inevitability of
Capitalism, Henry Holt, New York, as cited in A. Corallo, A., G. Passiante, A. Prencipe, (2007), The Digital
Business Ecosystem (Eds). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
113 Corallo, A., Passiante, G., and Prencipe, A., (2007), The Digital Business Ecosystem (Eds). Cheltenham:
Edward Elgar.
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