A complex adaptive systems agenda for ecosystem research methodology

Ecosystems have recently emerged as a visible stream in organization and management research. The ecosystem concept promises a broader, systems view of organizational and technological phenomena beyond traditional firm, value chain or network boundaries. However, adopting an ecosystem approach presents a range of methodological challenges for researchers, including how to set boundaries for the ecosystems, as well as how to examine their structure and relationships, as well as to explain the inherent dynamics and co-evolution. Based upon on a complex adaptive systems lens, this study proposes a theoretically grounded but pragmatic approach to address these challenges. The proposed methodological framework facilitates exploration of the conceptual, structural and temporal dimensions of ecosystem research design. An illustrative example is also included to showcase the framework's applicability. •Ecosystem research suffers from ambiguous conceptualizations and foundations.•To this end, we develop a complex adaptive systems approach to study ecosystems.•We introduce a framework with conceptual, structural and temporal dimensions.•The framework helps design better grounded and more holistic studies in the field.