Circular ecosystem innovation portfolio management

The prominence of the circular ecosystem raises questions about how firms innovate by creating and enhancing circular ecosystems. Using multiple case studies of seven companies and their circular ecosystems, we propose a new framework which we refer to as circular ecosystem innovation portfolio management. This new type of portfolio management addresses three different variations on circular innovation projects: new circular ecosystem innovation, architectural circular ecosystem innovation, and incremental circular ecosystem innovation. To deal with these projects, focal firms deal with four fundamental strategic decisions: internalizing, co-developing, inducing, and synchronizing. Three different strategic orientations explain how firms interpreted and dealt with their own needs and the circular ecosystem needs: circular egosystem, circular dominance, and circular health. The critical theoretical insight is circular ecosystem innovation portfolio management represents a new type of innovation process involving a new type of innovation project which increases our understanding of circular ecosystem heterogeneity and management.