Science Research Management ›› 2022, Vol. 43 ›› Issue (5): 11-22.

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The construction of service ecosystem for incubating enterprises in the context of corporate entrepreneurship——A study based on the resource orchestration theory

Chen Hansong, Tian Zhen   

  1. School of Business Administration, Shandong University of Finance and Economics, Jinan 250014, Shandong, China
  • Received:2021-07-28 Revised:2022-03-31 Online:2022-05-20 Published:2022-05-20

Abstract:     In recent years, large enterprises have actively promoted various forms of entrepreneurial activities to identify new development opportunities and cultivate new competitive advantages relying on resource endowments, technological advantages and innovative capabilities. Corporate entrepreneurship has become one of the important themes in entrepreneurial research. In the digital economy, more and more large enterprises have incubated digital native enterprises with Internet genes through corporate entrepreneurship. In order to adapt to the rapidly changing business environment and obtain sustainable competitive advantages, these digital enterprises are committed to building a service ecosystem to achieve resource sharing and value co-creation.
    Service ecosystem refers to a relatively independent and self-regulating system in which resource integrators exchange services to jointly create value through shared institutional logic. It includes a multi-layer system structure of micro-, meso- and macro-systems. The continuous innovation and widespread application of digital technologies such as the Internet and big data have blurred the boundaries of enterprises and promoted industrial integration. Stakeholders will actively seek cooperation to build a service ecosystem and gain sustainable competitive advantages. However, the existing research is relatively lacking in interpreting the construction mechanism of the service ecosystem, and most of them focus on the construction of large enterprise ecosystems. In the context of corporate entrepreneurship, the internal mechanism of incubating enterprises to build a service ecosystem is still unclear.
     The resource orchestration theory interprets the complete path of resource source, transformation and utilization from a dynamic perspective. The structuring process is about integrating resources and exchanging services between enterprises and its stakeholders. The bundling process is closely related to the establishment of relationships between enterprises and stakeholders. The leveraging process presents the final form of the service ecosystem. Therefore, the resource orchestration theory provides an appropriate logic for explaining the construction mechanism of the service ecosystem. 
     This paper adopts a single-case study method and selects Eyun incubated by Inspur as the case sample, in order to explore the process mechanism of incubating enterprises to build a service ecosystem using resource orchestration in the context of corporate entrepreneurship driven by large enterprises. The results show that: Firstly, the service ecosystem of incubating enterprise presents dynamic evolution characteristics, from enterprise-customer two-way interaction to enterprise-direct stakeholder multi-line linkage, and then to enterprise-wide social participant system collaboration. Secondly, the parent company gradually plays the role from strong resource support to balanced resource support and then to weak resource support, while the incubating enterprise makes effective combinations of resource orchestration due to the development stage and situation, thus promoting the rapid construction and evolution of the service ecosystem.
    The theoretical contributions of this paper are as follows: First, this research focuses on the service ecosystem construction of incubating enterprises in the context of corporate entrepreneurship and builds a theoretical model, which enriches the service ecosystem theory and corporate entrepreneurship theory. Second, this research explores the combination effect of resource orchestration in the process of constructing the service ecosystem of incubating enterprises, deepens the research on the relationship between resource orchestration and service ecosystem, and expands the application context of resource orchestration theory.

Key words: corporate entrepreneurship, incubating enterprise, resource orchestration, enterprise service ecosystem, case study