Abstract
This thematic issue provides an analysis of business models and business ecosystems based simultaneously on the tools of economic science and management science. It presents research that, in support of an original approach combining business models and business ecosystems, analyses how an economic system faces its competitive environment through innovation. Through this work, the aim of this issue is to show that the joint mobilisation of business models and business ecosystems concepts facilitates the analysis of new innovation processes such as understanding how an economic system is organised, managed or evolved. Research communities that have in turn interested in the business models of innovation, its ecosystem, the management of the property rights of its components, its learning effects, etc. have mostly been interested in how an economic system adapts its innovation strategy to its competitive environment. However, their work involves either the business model concept or the business ecosystem concept in isolation. This thematic issue seeks to show that, on the contrary, understanding the competitive dynamics at work and the way in which companies deal with them calls for a joint analysis of the business model and the ecosystem of the organisation or system being studied. As we learn from the theory of innovation systems (Carlsson and Stankiewicz, 1991; Dosi et al., 1988), connections between knowledge actors play a central role in the success, performance, development and sustainability of an economic system.