Bridges To Knowledge: A Blog by Barry Camson

Next Steps - For The Intersection of Business and Sustainability in Business Schools

How does the integration of business and sustainability play out in business schools and in business education? How can we advance our collective intentions in this regard? Expanding and deepening our ideas about this can be helpful.

The Epistemological Basis

When one speaks of integrating sustainability with business in education or in corporate actions, it is helpful to spend some time looking at the underlying epistemological frameworks.

Business is based on a dualistic view of the world. This is the lens or filter through which an individual knows or makes sense of the world. There is business and its objectives and then there is everything else. 

The idea of business growth, business value and roi is based on this dualistic view. We are still trying to reduce and fit everything in the world into a profit and loss statement. What is left out is the "other," externalized - the other side of the duality. This provides license not to care about what is externalized. The world is viewed as resources to be made use of in an instrumental manner - what can be of value to the business. These include human resources - employees and nature.

Doing business has traditionally been based on a mechanistic view of the world which differs from the character of sustainability. We tend to put things in separate silos. Aristotle started this trend many years ago. Newton's work led to the idea that the world was a clock which one has to disassemble in order to understand it.  

Of importance to our discussion here, business also appears to be based on an experiential way of knowing.

Business school is primarily cognitive. Though we read cases in business school which reflect the experience of others, the process of absorption of cases is a cognitive one. In some curriculum, there are Practicums which are experiential. Beyond that, the learning process utilizes lectures which are cognitive ways of knowing.

Sustainability is integrative, integral. It is based on a world viewed as being mutual, reciprocal and interdependent where humans and their endeavors are seen as an integral part of the Ecological system. This is more of what has been an indigenous view of the world.

The Current Drama

The education system as the purveyor of various epistemological frameworks (though still mostly cognitive) is one domain where this overall drama of business and sustainability is being played out. There are now business schools, organization psychology programs, sustainability schools and even the beginnings of business-sustainability programs. Each embodies a unique epistemological framework from which they act. 

A deeper drama is reflected in the societal projection of its dualistic way of thinking onto the business environment and by proxy onto business schools. Since it is how we make sense of the world, it is not surprising when we project this schema onto everything in our surroundings, including race and religion. We then create structures which reify this projection and hold it in place.

Moving beyond this dualistic projection becomes another challenge in the integration of business and sustainability in business school.

A Deeper Integration

Speaking about the integration of business and sustainability is a useful handle in approaching this challenge. However, Claire Haase in her graduate thesis from The Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, speaks of the intersection of business and sustainability. (Haase, 2022) In this view, the elements of sustainability encompassing all of the UN SDGs, e.g. ecological restoration, climate justice, the welfare of surrounding communities can have a multiplier effect in enhancing the flourishing of business in a broader sense.

In the same vein, the intersection of business education and sustainability has a multiplier effect in producing "a more rounded view of what managers are supposed to do," (Haase, 2022) thereby creating managers more equipped to respond to the challenges of the 21st century. Course work that deals with issues of social impact covering challenges like income inequality or food security would support this. (Haase, 2022) 

All of this when applied to the concept of integration would imbue it with added qualities. The more intense and dynamic connections that result would also reflect ongoing relationships at an epistemological level.

So when one speaks of business and sustainability, my question becomes: is there a potential marriage to be had here and what would that look like?

Developing a Meta-Integral View

Can one speak of engaging with the Business framework and then engaging with the Sustainability framework with a fluid movement between the two? Daniel Wahl suggests a helpful process based on the approach set out by Goethe in Goethian Science (Wahl, 2005)

Wahl suggests that this fluid movement can be done with science and ecology. In practice, this entails moving fluidly back and forth between a dualistic stance where the human as observer is seen as outside the system to an integral stance where the person is recognized as being a participant within the system. At this level, I believe this is indeed possible. At a higher meta level, both ways of knowing are "held" at the same time within a larger Integral framework.

Can this larger Integral way of knowing be extended to a business school environment? What would it look like as applied to business-sustainability-ecology? Here, intersection becomes a portal to a potentially new educational experience.

Experience as a Way of Knowing

One avenue worth pursuing in this endeavor is the realm of experience.

Both business and ecology - a key component of a sustainable view have a presence in the experiential way of knowing. The typical Harvard Business School case enables the reader to learn from the experience of others which is the experiential part of one's otherwise cognitive effort of understanding. One who has been in business does experience and learn first hand.

Learning from nature can be experiential from a human point of view if one takes the time to do so. Goethean Science is an example of this (Wahl, 2005). A strong argument can be made that nature experiences and learns though not in the way a human might. Indigenous society "knew" from the experience of being in nature.

In moving beyond integration, one moves beyond the resulting juxtaposition which can often become limited such as incorporating an ESG framework in an organization or adopting net-zero goals where the epistemological framework does not necessarily change. The dualistic world is perpetuated. One continues to live in the old paradigm of financial value to the business where everything else is the "other" - an add-on to the business enterprise.

Terms like intersection or melding or some other helpful term (all of which are metaphors) might connote a deeper, more intensive symbiotic connection whereby success in an ecological framework in turn produces success in a business framework and visa versa. In this realm, there is mutual enhancement leading to a result where the entire ecosystem flourishes. As in an ecosystem in nature, the business gives more to the surrounding natural and human ecosystem than it takes.

This is a multiplicative relationship as opposed to the existing either-or way of seeing the interaction between the two areas of business and sustainability.

Current Examples

What might this look like?

Those few companies that are adopting into their strategy and operations a triple or quadruple bottom line are reflections of this. The different objectives, e.g. commerce, environment, community rather than being detractors from one another have the potential of being enhancers, thus having a multiplying effect. I would hope that as part of this strategy, there is a recognition and exploration of the different ways of knowing existing at the points of intersection.

And, what of that which is being played out at an experiential level at the intersection of business and ecology? What might this look like? 

One thing that comes to mind is the new Apple Headquarters which is surrounded by nature with walking paths and many ways of physical-sensory access. One can experience both doing business and living in nature at the same time. Ecotourism ventures are another example.

I think that this brings us to an entry way into a Wonderland where like Alice, we can begin to wonder what might go on in this realm of intersection or melding.

Experiencing

In the spirit of leaving the reader with an experience, I am providing several images from two poems by William Blake. Perhaps, they convey what might happen in this realm of experience.

 

If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to

man as it is, Infinite.

For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow

chinks of his cavern.

                    From The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

 

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour.

                    From Auguries of Innocence

Touch Points and Deliberations, 2021

How can you analyze touch points along the customer journey as part of a design process? Are there contemporary models that can be illuminating in analyzing touch points in the process of design?

This article will review a few of these models and then arrive at practical and theoretically sound questions that can be used as a basis for analyzing and redesigning touch points as part of a customer journey and the surrounding ecosystem of value co-creation. This falls within the approach that I have been describing in previous posts about adaptive design for collaborative ecosystems.

Design Thinking

Design Thinking is a contemporary paradigm in developing innovative approaches to rendering service and products to clients and customers. It has been applied by IDEO to product development; by REOS Partners to global societal issues; and in the UK to improve government services. Others have adapted it to healthcare environments such as in the case of the Fairview Medical Center  as described by Winby, Worley and Martinson. The Design Thinking, Innovation Lab approach is now in use by many others.

The Design Thinking methodology centers on the customer journey and customer experience. It focuses on touch points that occur along the customer journey. Touch points are specific points where the customer engages with the providing enterprise in order to obtain goods or services. Ethnographic research is utilized to follow the customer and actually be with the customer along the customer's journey and at each touch point.

In ethnographic research, the customer is placed at the center of the analysis which seeks to understand what the customer is trying to accomplish. The analysis delves into the customer's context as part of exploring the customer's experience. Inquiry looks at the context of the customer with regard to how their lifestyle, emotions, support systems, family, etc. impact their needs and experience. The goal is to arrive at a deep understanding of their point of view in the customer's own language. Otto Scharmer refers to this process as one of dialogic interviewing. Essentially we learn to "walk a mile in their shoes."

Key questions in understanding touch points are as follows.

• What are the emotional highs and lows of the user?
• What role does the surrounding context of the user: life style, culture, relationships, support systems play in creating their experience?
• What is the user's experience and how does this compare to what they would perceive as an ideal experience?
• How do technical processes support this?

Service-Dominant Logic (S-D Logic)

What may be missing in our current approaches is a conceptual underpinning which addresses our contemporary world that increasingly looks at value in terms of the knowledge and skills exchanged. This can be either exchanged directly or indirectly by being embodied in goods. I believe this conceptual underpinning is provided by the growing discipline of S-D Logic set out by Vargo and Lusch (2004, Journal of Marketing, updated in Vargo and Lusch (2016, JAMS) initially with regard to the field of marketing. In endeavoring to apply the S-D Logic approach to the field of redesign, there are a number of factors that can be considered in the process of analysis. I believe that these can be applied to a given touch point.

S-D Logic talks about an exchange. The exchange has been described overall as an exchange of services or more specifically as an exchange of resources especially of skills and knowledge. Key here is a focus on how these resources are accessed, adapted and integrated.

The questions that I believe can be asked in an S-D Logic view fall into the following categories.

• Accessibility: How accessible are actors and resources to the customer from the network surrounding the customer? How can this network of actors be reconfigured to make resources more accessible?
• Adaptability: How are resources customized to fit the needs of the customer?
• Integration: What actions does the customer take to help realize value from the resource - to co-create their own consumption experience?

Knowledge Management

As one delves into the S-D Logic approach, one notices some similarities to the field of Knowledge Management. Knowledge Management conceptualizes steps in the process of knowledge absorption and use which is what S-D Logic describes in terms of an exchange.

• Knowledge development, acquisition, generation, exploration. This consists of activities which bring to light knowledge that is new to the individual, group or organization.
• Knowledge transfer, knowledge absorption. This is the movement of knowledge from one location to another and modification of the knowledge in the receiving unit.
• Knowledge retention, integration, exploitation. The knowledge becomes embedded in routines, processes, communities.

My Approach to Touch Point Analysis

The following represents what I would want to inquire into and impact as part of a touch point analysis and redesign. These questions benefit from all of the past work by others set out here.

• What knowledge, skills and resources are exchanged. By whom?
• What is the accessibility of knowledge, skills, resources and necessary people. How does the configuration of the network surrounding the user impact this?
• What is the user experience: current and ideal?
• Where and how does the actual experience of the user deviate from the expectations of the ideal?
• What activities does the customer-user and others perform including those people in the user's social context that impact value to the user?
• How can IT devices and platforms best support value to the user?
• What are helpful institutional supports, e.g. roles, integrating mechanisms, effective communication.

With these questions as a basis, one can hopefully begin to analyze the touch points along the customer journey as a basis for future redesigns.

How can you analyze touch points along the customer journey as part of a design process? Are there contemporary models that can be illuminating in analyzing touch points in the process of design?

This article will review a few of these models and then arrive at practical and theoretically sound questions that can be used as a basis for analyzing and redesigning touch points as part of a customer journey and the surrounding ecosystem of value co-creation. This falls within the approach that I have been describing in previous posts about adaptive design for collaborative ecosystems.

Design Thinking

Design Thinking is a contemporary paradigm in developing innovative approaches to rendering service and products to clients and customers. It has been applied by IDEO to product development; by REOS Partners to global societal issues; and in the UK to improve government services. Others have adapted it to healthcare environments such as in the case of the Fairview Medical Center  as described by Winby, Worley and Martinson. The Design Thinking, Innovation Lab approach is now in use by many others.

The Design Thinking methodology centers on the customer journey and customer experience. It focuses on touch points that occur along the customer journey. Touch points are specific points where the customer engages with the providing enterprise in order to obtain goods or services. Ethnographic research is utilized to follow the customer and actually be with the customer along the customer's journey and at each touch point.

In ethnographic research, the customer is placed at the center of the analysis which seeks to understand what the customer is trying to accomplish. The analysis delves into the customer's context as part of exploring the customer's experience. Inquiry looks at the context of the customer with regard to how their lifestyle, emotions, support systems, family, etc. impact their needs and experience. The goal is to arrive at a deep understanding of their point of view in the customer's own language. Otto Scharmer refers to this process as one of dialogic interviewing. Essentially we learn to "walk a mile in their shoes."

Key questions in understanding touch points are as follows.

• What are the emotional highs and lows of the user?
• What role does the surrounding context of the user: life style, culture, relationships, support systems play in creating their experience?
• What is the user's experience and how does this compare to what they would perceive as an ideal experience?
• How do technical processes support this?

Service-Dominant Logic (S-D Logic)

What may be missing in our current approaches is a conceptual underpinning which addresses our contemporary world that increasingly looks at value in terms of the knowledge and skills exchanged. This can be either exchanged directly or indirectly by being embodied in goods. I believe this conceptual underpinning is provided by the growing discipline of S-D Logic set out by Vargo and Lusch (2004, Journal of Marketing, updated in Vargo and Lusch (2016, JAMS) initially with regard to the field of marketing. In endeavoring to apply the S-D Logic approach to the field of redesign, there are a number of factors that can be considered in the process of analysis. I believe that these can be applied to a given touch point.

S-D Logic talks about an exchange. The exchange has been described overall as an exchange of services or more specifically as an exchange of resources especially of skills and knowledge. Key here is a focus on how these resources are accessed, adapted and integrated.

The questions that I believe can be asked in an S-D Logic view fall into the following categories.

• Accessibility: How accessible are actors and resources to the customer from the network surrounding the customer? How can this network of actors be reconfigured to make resources more accessible?
• Adaptability: How are resources customized to fit the needs of the customer?
• Integration: What actions does the customer take to help realize value from the resource - to co-create their own consumption experience?

Knowledge Management

As one delves into the S-D Logic approach, one notices some similarities to the field of Knowledge Management. Knowledge Management conceptualizes steps in the process of knowledge absorption and use which is what S-D Logic describes in terms of an exchange.

• Knowledge development, acquisition, generation, exploration. This consists of activities which bring to light knowledge that is new to the individual, group or organization.
• Knowledge transfer, knowledge absorption. This is the movement of knowledge from one location to another and modification of the knowledge in the receiving unit.
• Knowledge retention, integration, exploitation. The knowledge becomes embedded in routines, processes, communities.

My Approach to Touch Point Analysis

The following represents what I would want to inquire into and impact as part of a touch point analysis and redesign. These questions benefit from all of the past work by others set out here.

• What knowledge, skills and resources are exchanged. By whom?
• What is the accessibility of knowledge, skills, resources and necessary people. How does the configuration of the network surrounding the user impact this?
• What is the user experience: current and ideal?
• Where and how does the actual experience of the user deviate from the expectations of the ideal?
• What activities does the customer-user and others perform including those people in the user's social context that impact value to the user?
• How can IT devices and platforms best support value to the user?
• What are helpful institutional supports, e.g. roles, integrating mechanisms, effective communication.

With these questions as a basis, one can hopefully begin to analyze the touch points along the customer journey as a basis for future redesigns.

Towards a Practice of Flourishing

 

 

The Practice of Flourishing

A growing practice of flourishing can be identified in the thought-leadership of key organizations as well as in the practical, hands-on activities of some businesses and communities. In a way this represents a vast expansion of the Quality of Work Life (QWL) initiatives in the later part of the 20th century to the forms of organization which organize our current work lives. Even more significantly, this represents an extension to the communities and ecosystems which contain these efforts and the lives of people and Nature within them. These Quality of Life efforts are captured in the term flourishing and are reflected in the integrated efforts that are part of it.

The Era of Job Diagnosis and Design

The approach utilized in the past of focusing on the motivation and satisfaction of employees within a particular organization, while valuable, has become outdated. This is not to say that it is no longer of importance. Nor, is it to say that factors utilized in the past as part of an assessment of work and jobs are no longer valid. To some extent, many of these factors have become baked into current practices. These are factors such as skill variety, autonomy, feedback about work and use of teams. However, today's world is radically different from the world of 1975 when Hackman and Oldham first published their findings about job design.

In addition, ideas about participation in job design which were new in the 1970's have since become embedded into the participative practices of job crafting.

The Contemporary Discourse

We now need to be looking at expanded value chains and value networks in assessing the kind of jobs that people have. Organizations are beginning to be held morally, if not legally, responsible for labor practices in their value chains. Beyond this, conversations are now occurring about clusters, ecosystems and even bioregions as the purview of assessment.

The language of job motivation and satisfaction has become a discourse about employee wellbeing. I believe that the latest evolution of this is the idea of flourishing. And, significantly, the discourse is not being limited to employees of a given organization, but is being extended to those in their value chains and in the surrounding community or ecosystem as well. For this flourishing to occur, multiple factors in the local and global ecosystem have to be considered touching on breathable air, sustainable water, adequate food, CO2 emissions, and various forms of equity. Beyond these, there is also an increasing conversation about non-human flourishing as well.

Creating Shared Value

Michael Porter has been writing about "creating shared value" which reflects a wider scope of attention. His perspective represents moving beyond a singular focus on economic activity as the driver of corporate success. Porter points out that we need to recognize that improving the social conditions of workers and communities can also be an important driver of both the company's success as well as improved conditions in the community. (Porter, M, Kramer, M, "Creating Shared Value," Harvard Business Review, 2011)

UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG's)

The larger discourse of flourishing is very much tied up with the sustainability movement. The 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals recognize that wellbeing and flourishing touches a variety of aspects of life and not just human life. The inherent assumption to this is that progress on any one goal requires progress on other goals.

For example, progress on goals of Decent Work and Economic Growth (#8) requires progress on Good Health and Wellbeing (# 3), Quality Education (#4), Gender Equality (#5), Zero Hunger (#2) and Clean Water and Sanitation (#6). This is an inherently integrated approach.   

One Planet Living Principles

Other approaches also help to add to this discourse about flourishing.  Oneplanet.com lists Ten One Planet Living Principles including: Health and Happiness, Sustainable Water, Zero Waste and Local and Sustainable Food. Oneplanet supports entities and communities who are developing plans around one or more of these ten principles.

The discourse about flourishing involves the identification and definition of desired qualities and an integrated way of implementing, measuring and reporting the attainment of these qualities. Measurement is of importance in a business context and in making the case to funders and citizens about progress.

Multicapitals and Integrated Reporting

The multicapital approach goes beyond the Economic, Social and Environmental goals of a triple-bottom line approach to posit five types of capital which can be accounted for. While the focus in this multi-capital approach is on capital rather than goals, this does reflect a wider purview of what to consider in the creation of value. It also stresses the importance of an integrated way of thinking, doing business and reporting.

The providers of financial capital are interested in the value an organization creates for itself and the value it creates for others while it is affecting the value the organization is creating for itself. This assesses value over various time frames. It enables looking at the interdependencies and trade-offs among capitals as part of a business model tailored to the external environment as value is created, preserved or diminished.

The specific delineation of capitals can vary. For example, the breakout below does not have a separate category for Intellectual Capital which others do include.

These types of capital are:

• Natural: Air, land, water, minerals, flora, fauna, ecosystems and other natural biophysical resources that humans and non-humans rely on for their well-being;
• Human: Knowledge, skills, experience, health, values, attitudes and ethical duties;
• Social and relationship: Teams, networks and hierarchies working together and their shared knowledge, skills, experience, health and values;
• Constructed: Material objects, systems or ecosystems created by humans;
• Economic: This can be internal or external. Internal financial capital refers to the pool of funds available to a company, including debt and equity finance. External financial capital consists of all funds available to parties outside an organization that a company can choose to access. 

The capitals need to be set out in an integrated reporting structure. This avoids the either/or dilemma that has been part of modern day business: profit or people; profit or the environment. This reflects that an enterprise operates in a world of complex supply chains and business relationships and ongoing technological change all of which is within planetary boundaries.

With respect to planetary boundaries, value is interpreted by reference to thresholds and parameters based on evidence about the carrying capacity and limits of resources on which stakeholders and companies rely for wellbeing and profit. One consequence of this is that problems like the disposal of waste or CO2 emissions and their cost cannot be externalized and exported to other parts of the value chain or the globe.

Kate Raworth's Doughnut Economics sets out an insightful approach to both the carrying capacity of the planet in different areas as well as areas where inequities are suffered by groups of people on the planet.

Wilderness Safaris and the 4 C's

Another interesting application can be found in the Harvard Business School case, "Wilderness Safaris: Ecotourism Entrepreneurship," where the business sets out their own multi-pronged and integrated approach to company value. (Austin, J, 2018). The company calls this the 4C's. The C's are: Commerce, Conservation, Community and Culture. These are described in terms of impact on multiple levels of system: the individual, the corporate entity, portfolio of businesses, the community and national levels. All of this is discussed in the business case and the various annual reports with regard to the ecotourism context of Wilderness Safaris at various sites in Africa.

Both in the very tangible plans set out on the Oneplanet.com website and in this business case, flourishing can be seen to have a very tangible, concrete and measurable aspect to it though sometimes the measures are qualitative narratives of progress.

The Wilderness Safaris case raises the issue of what it takes for a business enterprise and its stakeholders to flourish. Is it possible and if so, what mechanisms will enable this? What values provide a foundation for this. And, how could we apply these approaches to our own lives, organizations and communities?

I believe that the discourse of flourishing inheres in the many conversations in which the business model of Wilderness Safaris was set and implemented, in the feedback and measurement that evaluates the actions of this company and in the lives of people in the relevant ecosystems.

In pursuing this, here are some specific questions about the case to consider:

1. What is the Wilderness Safaris business model and its key elements?
2. Is the 4C framework working for WS? Are the 4 C's aligned with one another or in tension? How has WS gone about balancing them?
3. How essential is integrated reporting to WS's approach?
4. To what extent has WS and its stakeholders flourished under its business model and 4C approach? How does the business model support this? (Looking at stakeholders including: communities, clients, staff, ecosystem - nature, wildlife, government and investors.)
5. Based on all of this, do you have some ideas for a theory and practice of flourishing for your own business, life or community? How do you imagine that this would motivate the participation of your stakeholders?

 

Sustainability and Human Evolution

Are human beings, H. sapiens, genetically disposed to being unsustainable in the current ecological situation of our planet? This is a question raised by William Rees in a 2010 article, "What's blocking sustainability? Human nature, cognition and denial."

Creating a Better World

 

To survive into the future, businesses, organizations and our global society will need to develop updated assumptions about what it takes to do well as inhabitants of this planet. New ideas about the relationship of the economy, businesses, the individual and the biosphere will need to be developed to replace outdated ones. We need a new story of humanity's place as a contributor to the thriving ecosystem of our planet that reflects our full human potential.

Integrating Ecosystem and Value Chain Design in Sustainability Efforts, Revisited

How can one use the practice of design to implement sustainability approaches in organizations and in their surrounding ecosystems?

This is a daunting challenge especially with regard to ecosystems because the ecosystem of even a small polluter can be inhabitants of the entire planet or certainly a region of the globe.

One really needs to take a whole-earth perspective to fully comprehend this. This is vividly demonstrated in the recent "school-strike" catalyzed by Greta Thunberg of Sweden which involved 1.6 million young people in almost 1700 cities and towns in over 123 countries in every continent.

We do have to start somewhere in terms of organizations and one place to start is to gain a concept of the system with which we are dealing. This involves viewing the organization in terms of what may be a more linear, value-chain as well as seeing the organization as part of a larger ecosystem.

Integrating Ecosystem and Value Chain Design in Sustainability Efforts

There are several important questions with regard to using design to improve sustainability in organizations. The first is how does one take a large-scale ecosystem perspective to design while also maintaining a more detailed, linear value chain perspective. The second is what role does the customer journey and experience play regarding these two perspectives especially in large systems. This post looks at both of these.

Ecosystem Members Co-creating Designs

I have been expressing the idea in previous posts that in an ecosystem, knowledge and skills are continually exchanged by members of the ecosystem in the process of ongoing value co-creation. In this article, I will apply this to designing in ecosystems.

Lately, I have read some academic articles that talk about extending this process of value co-creation to participative, redesign efforts in an ecosystem. As Lucy Kimbell from the University of Oxford states, design can be a distributed social effort in which the role of a central designer is not privileged. In this view, design is carried out by professional designers and by end-users and others. (Kimbell, 2011, 2012). In practice, this could include members of the HR organization.

Touch Points and Deliberations: Cal Pava Meets the 21st Century

What does Cal Pava's groundbreaking work on Deliberations in organization redesign have to tell us about analyzing touch points along the customer journey as part of a design process? Are there other contemporary models that can be illuminating in analyzing touch points in the process of design?

This article will review these models and then arrive at practical and theoretically sound questions that can be used as a basis for analyzing and redesigning touch points as part of a customer journey and the surrounding ecosystem of value co-creation. This falls within the approach that I have been describing in previous posts about adaptive design for collaborative ecosystems.

Adaptive Design For Collaborative Ecosystems

This article sets out a working description of a collaborative ecosystem in which value is co-created. It describes what needs to be attended to in the process of adaptive design for the ecosystem. It sets out a path forward in pursuing adaptive design for a collaborative ecosystem.

Are you an Ecosystem?

Being an ecosystem involves recognizing all those engaged in the co-creation of value and in ongoing relationships with one another constituting a larger network. This is qualitatively different from seeing your organization plus all of the business relationships it has with its different providers and stakeholders. It is different from seeing your customer or client as the recipient of the goods or services that you develop.