Innovating Through Networks and Ecosystems  

This theme explores how innovation emerges, diffuses, and is constrained within inter-organizational networks and ecosystems. Building on studies of value co-creation, ecosystem dynamics, entrepreneurial ecosystems, and shared problem representation, it investigates how organisational actors balance cooperation and competition, manage tensions, and co-evolve their innovation capabilities.

The theme brings together work on business networks, service ecosystems, entrepreneurial ecosystems, and regional innovation systems. It examines how actors develop shared understandings of complex problems, how tensions shape collaboration, and how network structures enable or inhibit innovation, resilience, adaptability, and mutual value creation. Particular attention is paid to dynamic and digitally mediated contexts, where organisations must coordinate across boundaries while responding to changing technologies, markets, and stakeholder expectations.

A key strand of the theme focuses on the role of entrepreneurial and regional ecosystems in supporting business growth and economic resilience. Research by staff involved in this theme develops a network-based view of entrepreneurial ecosystems, showing how relationships, structures, and behaviours shape the effectiveness of ecosystem support. Recent work linked to the Smart and Scale scheme shows that North East England led the UK in business scaleup growth between 2020 and 2023, with 1.8% of firms meeting high-growth definitions compared with a national average of 1.55%. It also highlights that women-led firms in the region exceeded national benchmarks at the highest growth thresholds, pointing to the importance of locally embedded enterprise ecosystems and collaborative support programmes.

Across the theme, our research is rooted in a commitment to economic resilience and sustainable development, particularly in North East England. By translating theoretical insights on networks and ecosystem dynamics into actionable practices, we work with regional policymakers, universities, business networks, and support organisations to help convert local ambitions into sustainable performance. The theme therefore connects conceptual work on network and ecosystem dynamics with practical questions of regional development, inclusive scaleup, and innovation capacity.

Members

• Stephanie Scott, https://www.durham.ac.uk/business/our-people/s-a-scott/ 
• Zsófia Tóth, https://www.durham.ac.uk/business/our-people/zsofia-toth/ 

Associated research (selected)

• Scott, Stephanie, Farzana Chowdhury, Efstathios Papanikolaou, and Dacosta Omari (2026), "A microfoundational network theory of rural entrepreneurial ecosystems: Establishing the link between structure and behaviours," Small Business Economics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-026-01173-z
• Wirths, Oliver, Zsófia Tóth, and Carlos A. Diaz Ruiz (2024), "Adversarial service networks: A study of service firms’ response to manufacturer-led servitization in aviation," Industrial Marketing Management, 119, 162–177. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2024.04.004
• Scott, Stephanie, Mathew Hughes, and Domingo Ribeiro-Soriano (2022), "Towards a network-based view of effective entrepreneurial ecosystems," Review of Managerial Science, 16 (1), 157–187. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11846-021-00440-5
• Ogundipe, Samuel Johnson, Linda D. Peters, and Zsófia Tóth (2022), "Interfirm problem representation: Developing shared understanding within inter-organizational networks," Industrial Marketing Management, 100, 76–87. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2021.11.004
• Tóth, Zsófia, Linda D. Peters, Andrew Pressey, and Wesley J. Johnston (2018), "Tension in a value co-creation context: A network case study," Industrial Marketing Management, 70, 34–45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2017.08.015