Business Networks and Ecosystems: rethinking the biological metaphor

Driven by technological and market changes organizations compete and cooperate, and bring firms to experiment alternative coordination mechanisms that lead to intermediate or hybrid forms of organization. During the 90s, Powell and Castells argued that networks are distinctive form of coordinating economic activity and made sense to classify as “business network” any organizational structure adopting such a coordination mechanism. Although research has made important contributions towards the understanding of business networks, further theoretical and empirical research is required to develop a better understanding of the processes underlying the structure and evolution of them. Renewing the expectation of Marshall (1948) several authors look for inspiration in biological science, electing “the theory of ecosystems” and “the evolutionary theory” as the main biological research fields affecting social and economic science that provide innovative perspective and theoretical models. In this work, we look forward to rethink the biological metaphor in order to explain the real relationship between business network and ecosystem in an evolutionary perspective.