Table 1.

Research approaches conceptualizing the business environment.

	Business fields	Business networks	Business ecosystems	Market systems
Core ideas	•Field institutions are made of cultural-cognitive, normative, and regulative processes and elements; with associated activities and resources, these give stability and meaning to field. •Two streams: (1) Traditional Field Theory Stream addressing the elements and character of the field as an arena of competition; and (2) Neo-Institutional Theory Stream focusing on the processes constructing and transforming the field.	•Three streams: (1) Markets-as Networks focusing on business networks as emergent structures; and (2) Strategic Networks addressing intentionally designed networks and their management. (3) Innovation Networks addressing intentionally designed networks and their management targeting to co-creation of innovations. •All three see inter-actor networks as the core constituents of the business domain and employ the Actors-Resources-Activities frame for analysis. •Relationships as vehicles for resource and social exchange, resource creation, and network influencing.	•Two perspectives: (1) Macro Ecosystems, i.e., ecosystems as extensive “ecologies” describing industries/business fields, composed of interrelated and often competing focal ecosystems; and (2) the more used, organization-centric Focal or Strategic Ecosystems, i.e., ecosystems as focal and purposeful coalitions of actors. •The latter has broader and narrower versions: (a) affiliation ecosystems, i.e., collaborative arrangements by which firms combine their offerings into a customer-facing solution, and (b) alignment ecosystems, i.e., structures of partners that interact to enable a focal value proposition.	•Markets viewed as socially constructed human artefacts and contexts for value creation. •Systemic: market systems consist of a broad set of actors (not only seller-buyer dyads); the resulting complexity leads to emergent characteristics. •Two perspectives: (1) Market-as-Verb Perspective (e.g., market practices and market work); and (2) Market-as-Noun Perspective (e.g., market system elements and market devices). •Increasing focus on materiality and performative power of (inanimate) market devices such as technologies.
Goals	•To understand (1) the structure and evolution of the business domain as an arena of social activities; and (2) the formation of norms/rules guiding actor behavior, and (3) the competition to create and influence the rules and social structures.	•To understand the structure and evolution of macro networks •To assess the characteristics of strategic networks and derive effective capability and organizational solutions. •To assess a firm's collaborative & competitive options in networks	•To understand business environments as ecosystems (Macro Perspective). •To describe and analyze focal ecosystems as modes of organizing business. •To examine the management requirements of ecosystems.	•To understand markets as complex socio-technical-material systems instead of simple matchers of supply and demand. •To achieve market innovations: change of existing market structures and practices for increased value creation.
Structure	•Focus on the field level, its social structure and embodied norms, rules and culture. •Actors constitute the field; they both influence the field and are conditioned by it.	•Focus on focal networks/strategic nets, their development and management. •Macro network view of “industries/fields” – their network structure and its dynamics.	•Macro ecosystems and focal ecosystems. •Nestedness – layers of ecosystems, and platforms.	•Incorporates micro-meso-macro perspective attempting to understand how they are interlinked. •Market systems are malleable: evolve due to actor-driven and emergent developments.
Agency of actors	•Actors' (firms, managers) behaviors and actions, including sensemaking, are constrained by the collective culture and norms of the field. •The paradox of embedded agency: actors can envision institutional change despite being embedded in an institutional status quo. •Actors' relative power depends on their capital (financial, technological, cultural, commercial, social and symbolic) and the importance of functions they carry out in the field.	•Actor behavior is embedded; actions cannot be understood out of their local and historical context. •Actors learn and construct their environment through enactment. They are both constrained and enabled by their focal network(s). •Actors' relative influence depends on the importance of their resources (for the focal network), and relationships.	•Actors are generally seen as boundedly rational decision makers, restricted and influenced by their resource base and the modes of interdependence (types of complementarity). •Actors pursue economic and strategic gains by constructing and partnering in ecosystems.	•Markets not seen as exogenous to actors. •Market work: purposeful efforts by a focal actor to perform and transform markets. •Actors' agency governed by institutional arrangements and by various market practices, in which action is determined by the context. •The performative power of actors depends on their network position, the relative strength of business model, and ability to author compelling market propositions.
Processes, forces	•Evolutionary and revolutionary. Fields are in constant, but mainly incremental change (stability of the field level). Infrequent bursts of radical change, primarily caused by technological or social innovations, challenge the institutional pattern. •Actor level competition is the primary force of change.	•Social interaction, resource exchange and co-creation, and adaptation form the key processes for analyzing interorganizational and network change. •Emergence of macro and focal networks over iterative phases – exploration, mobilization. •Actor level collaboration primary force for emergence and creation of new resources.	•Organization-centric (orchestrator) view on change. •Both competition and collaboration as driving forces. Main focus on competition.	•Duality of design and emergence: the focal actor can influence the evolution of the market system but needs to acknowledge emergent developments. •Two approaches to deliberate design: (1) the focal actor view; and (2) the collaboration view. •Actor-driven change based on non-predictive strategy: effectuation and experimentation.
Key references	Anderson & Tushman, 1990; Bourdieu, 2005; Carvalho et al., 2017; Christenson, 1997; DiMaggio and Powell, 1983, DiMaggio and Powell, 1991; Fourcade, 2007; Fligstein, 1991; Garud et al., 2007; Moore, 1993; Rogers, 2010; Scott, 2014; Scott & Davis, 2007; Thornton & Ocasio, 1999; Van Bockhaven & Matthyssens, 2017.	Aarikka-Stenroos et al., 2014; Aarikka-Stenroos & Ritala, 2017; Dhanaraj & Parkhe, 2006; Frels et al., 2003; Henneberg et al., 2006; Håkansson & Ford, 2002; Håkansson & Snehota, 1995; Håkansson & Waluszewski, 2002; Medlin & Törnroos, 2014; Möller, 2013; Möller & Halinen, 2017; Möller and Svahn, 2006, Möller and Svahn, 2009; Möller & Rajala, 2007; Möller et al., 2005; Pisano & Verganti, 2008; Ritter et al., 2004.	Aarikka-Stenroos & Ritala, 2017; Adner, 2006, Adner, 2012, Adner, 2017; Adner & Kapoor, 2010; Autio & Thomas, 2014; Dattée et al., 2018; Engel, 2015; Frow et al., 2016; Gawer & Cusumano, 2002; Iansiti & Levien, 2004; Jacobides et al., 2018; Lundvall, 2007; Partanen & Möller, 2012; Ritala & Gustafsson, 2018; Talmar et al., 2018; Thomas et al., 2014.	Alvarez & Barney, 2007; Andersson et al., 2008; Araujo, 2007; Araujo et al., 2010; Baker & Nenonen, 2020; Callon, 1998; Geiger et al., 2012; Kindström et al., 2018; Kjellberg et al., 2012, Kjellberg et al., 2015; Kjellberg and Helgesson, 2006, Kjellberg and Helgesson, 2007; MacKenzie & Millo, 2003; Mason et al., 2017; Mele et al., 2015; Muniesa et al., 2007; Nenonen & Storbacka, 2018; Nenonen et al., 2014, Nenonen, Storbacka, & Frethey-Bentham, 2019, Nenonen, Storbacka, Sklyar, et al., 2019, Nenonen, Storbacka, & Windahl, 2019; Read et al., 2009; Sarasvathy, 2008; Storbacka and Nenonen, 2011a, Storbacka and Nenonen, 2011b.