Performance indicators for collaborative business ecosystems — Literature review and trends

Nowadays, more and more enterprises are aware and motivated to adhere to collaborative platforms as business enablers, allowing groups of companies to improve their offer and competitiveness. As such, the concept of business ecosystem is becoming prominent. However, despite the evidences of collaboration benefits, for which some research efforts have been made, there is still a lack of suitable performance indicators and associated metrics to assess those benefits, promoting sustainability and resilience of the members of a collaborative business ecosystem. The analysis of the literature shows that a number of contributions can be found in several research fields, such as enterprise performance indicators, collaboration benefits, value systems, supply chain collaboration, and social network analysis. The purpose of this paper is to survey these areas, highlighting their potential contributions concerning the assessment of collaborative benefits and performance. The analysis also identifies the strengths and weaknesses of current proposals regarding the establishment of adequate performance indicators for collaborative business ecosystems. •Measurement of collaboration benefits is an important element in business ecosystems.•Sustainability and resilience of collaborative business ecosystems depend on adequate performance indicators.•A healthy collaborative business ecosystem leads to economic and social value creation.