Assessing the Health of a Business Ecosystem: The Contribution of the Anchoring Actor in the Formation Phase

Business ecosystem concept takes ideas from ecological ecosystems into analysis of complex networks. Business ecosystems emerge either as managed initiatives or organically, impacted by internal or external stimuluses. Ecosystem formation is unpredictable and challenging to control transferring project front-end into an operational ecosystem. The theme of this research is how to form a healthy business ecosystem. If defines a framework for formation analysis and introduces the concept of the anchoring actor as a role leading the formation. Ecosystem health assessment through actors and relationships provides information to support ecosystem formation. Through a case study in Taiwanese health and wellbeing domain, this research presents how the anchoring actors can be identified and how they contribute to ecosystem formation. Building on the anchoring actors’ contribution, the research defines a model for ecosystem health assessment. Practitioners can use the findings to facilitate the ecosystem formation and to monitor the ecosystem health. This research contributes to the business ecosystem and business network literatures by introducing the anchoring actor as an important role for ecosystem formation and by presenting how ecosystem health can be assessed.