MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Sharing Value for Ecosystem Success

What do you call an ecosystem in which you always see your company as the central actor?

An ego-system. This is how we end up with labels such as the “Google ecosystem,” the “Facebook ecosystem,” the “insert-your-name-here ecosystem.” These labels seem impressive at the get-go, but they undermine an important truth: Ecosystem strategy is alignment strategy.

About the Author

Ron Adner (@ronadner) is the Nathaniel D’1906 and Martha E. Leverone Memorial Professor of Business Administration and professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He is the author of The Wide Lens: What Successful Innovators See That Others Miss (Portfolio, 2012), and Winning the Right Game: How to Disrupt, Defend, and Deliver in a Changing World (MIT Press, 2021), from which this article is adapted.

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