Evolving Automotive Ecosystems: A Conceptual Review of Innovation Integration and Separation

As new technologies, such as autonomous vehicles (AV), flood the market, companies are looking for the right time to integrate these innovations into the environment. However, the understanding of the consequences of integrating or emerging with new technologies within an established ecosystem remains limited. While previous literature has explored case studies of ecosystem emergence, this paper aims to extend the existing knowledge by developing an ecosystem dynamics model that examines the dynamics of innovation emergence within the context of an established environmental structure. Drawing on ecosystem theory, a conceptual framework is proposed to elucidate the intricate relationship between existing ecosystems and disruptive innovations like AVs. For instance, will automotive suppliers develop their own technologies, potentially leading to their departure from the ecosystem of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs)? My findings shed new light on the integrations, creations and separation decision for new innovation in their ecosystem. The primary contributions of this paper are to provide both, an overview on the evolution of a new ecosystem from an existing ecosystem by introducing a new innovation to the market and an understanding of the conditions when this step of separation followed by creation is preferred over fostering integration into the existing ecosystem.