Introduction. The territorial prospective of Digital Business Ecosystem

Transcription

1 Introduction. The territorial prospective of Digital Business Ecosystem Antonella Passani CENSIS Multi-located ecosystems The aim of this brief introduction is to delineate, unavoidably in a schematic way, the theoretical approach of DBE s local implementation. In order to do so, it s first of all necessary to clarify the term Digital Business Ecosystem. The term, in fact, assumes at least four different meanings in the present volume indicating different objects and diversified fields of research. DBE is the name of the first and largest European project among the cluster of projects supported by the European Commission within the sector Technologies for digital ecosystems of the 6th Framework Programme (a 3-year, 14m European Integrated Project). However it also refers to: the result of the integration the business environment (business ecosystem) with the software environment (digital ecosystem) in which business applications can be developed and used; the interdisciplinary approach to technology design and development; the peculiar process of territorial innovation enabled by the availability of a digital ecosystem. The chapter we introduce mainly refers to the last meaning, i.e. a process of territorial innovation. It is important to note that we preferred the term territorial innovation to that of territorial development. This for two main reasons: - DBE can be implemented, and has been implemented, in regions with very different socio-economic and infrastructural characteristics. It can be applied to lagging behind territories as well as to advanced ones; - DBE take the steps from a relativistic prospective to territorial change, i.e. the project does not indicate one or another local implementation as best practices transferable to other territories. On the contrary, the local implementation process has been imagined as a path that needs to be carefully adapted to local realities. In this sense, the DBE approach to locality is strongly coherent with the DBE s technological environment, which is open, flexible and able to adjust to users specific needs. The above-mentioned aspects are crucial: the following articles describe different experiences of DBE local implementation, which indicate different possible usages of DBE coherently with pre-existing local specificities, innovation goals and future oriented visions. 2. The centrality of local dimension As Kavin Morgan (2001) pointed out, the debate about globalisation and the digital era Digital Ecosystems 4.0.1

2 probably exaggerated the so-called death of geography. The spatial dimension of economic and social process have been somehow neglected in favour of a vision in which technologies could develop new models of business and social interaction somehow independent from original spatial dimensions (Cfr. Friedman, T.J., 2005). Both globalisation and ICT diffusion, for sure, create new flows of information and new paths for cultural and economic exchange; by the way, as Appadurai (1996) demonstrate, while objects and finances move easily from one spot of the world to another, the same is not valid for meaning and knowledge. A good example can be the media sphere in which images move freely from a country to another but the significance of each image and the value associated with it vary considerable in association with the localization of the viewer (obviously other factors such as gender, age, economic background and education does matter too). In other terms, information and goods are moved and diffused through new channels and reach new territories while the decodification of that information and the value of those goods assume narrower meanings and are integrated in the pre-existing local knowledge and culture (Morgan, 1997). Tacit knowledge and social capital, i.e. un-codified knowledge and the value each person and organization has, thanks to its relation links, are really more difficult to migrate and translocate from a region to another. Never the less, those assets are vital for local innovation and also at the level of single enterprise, especially for SMEs (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). Translation, adjustment, adaptation become decisive because virtual proximity may well be a surrogate for physical proximity in the context of standardised transactions, but not in the context of transactions which are high in complexity, ambiguity and tacitness (Morgan, 2001:5). In fact this is the case of local innovation in which we need to take in consideration a multiplicity of actors, their specificity in term of needs and possibilities, the structural economic condition and the cultural related stiles of governances. And this is the case of DBE regional engagement, of course. The process of DBE implementation, in this context, can be understood as the challenge to translate a process of technological environment development and usage in different local contexts and maximise its potentialities in term of economic development, social capital improvement, Ict diffusion, and so on. As pointed out by L. Rivera León in her article (section 2 of this book) Investing in DBE implementation is a long-term investment in knowledge creation and dissemination. Beside this, DBE implementation is also a process of network-building, it imply the activation of multiple collaboration and the involvement of diversifies stakeholders (university, intermediate actors, SMEs, police makers and knowledge hub). 3. DBE implementation: key actors In this process of local knowledge creation and diffusion and of collaboration reinforcement, the role of Regional Catalysts (RCs) has been crucial. Regional Catalysts is the term by which the DBE project defined local actors that, as in a chemical reaction, got the role of facilitating and speeding up the process of DBE implementation. As the articles that follow show, the choice of recognizing one local organization, firmly rooted in the regional system as responsible of DBE local implementation has been a successful one and it s now ready to be experimented elsewhere. But what does an RC have to do? Regional Catalysts work to create a climate of reciprocal trust in order to promote DBE approach local exploitation and the concrete usage of the technological environment. It is the RCs that engage the SMEs, coordinating their training programs in order to support their technical systems and monitor their activities. Digital Ecosystems 4.0.2

3 RCs also have three main goals: - engage local SMEs - sustain DBE technological development and customization to local needs - attract policy makers interest In order for SMEs to make the decision to engage with DBE, collaborating with other companies, share strategic functions as well as sensitive information, it is essential that they feel they can count on intermediaries with the capacity to facilitate the process of network building and knowledge transfer. The concept of trust, already introduced in other article (see E. Berdou article in this book) comes into play. The project experience confirmed literature results about innovation adoption: beside the technological quality of an innovation the trust towards who is promoting such innovation it s a central variable in the adoption process. RCs act as Sponsors of the DBE, and as Implementation Units. With the term sponsor we mean the capacity of RCs to create consensus among DBE and develop an atmosphere of trust around it; they function as gatekeepers for the territorial community and are able to attract other innovation leaders as additional DBE sponsor (large enterprises, SMEs, research center, intermediate actor such as chamber of commerce, development agencies, entrepreneurial association, etc..). The activation of social local networks (see Kurz, Passani and Heistracher in this book) facilitate the decision of a single SME to get involved. The activation of policy makers resulted also really important, particularly in some territories such as Aragon. The decision of a local government to support (economically and politically) the DBE is an additional form of sponsorship able to reinforce the trust towards it because it helps in achieving an important pre-requisite of trust building: the 'shadow of the future'. In order to trust someone (or something like an innovation process) it s important to be sure that the relation we are establishing in a determinate moment, will have enough time to grow, reinforce and reach first results. The engagement of local police maker, in this sense, can be crucial in reinforcing an European project such as DBE, because it guarantee that the innovation will still running after the end of the EU project and, more over, an investment from local actors and they effective use of the technology assure SMEs that they really believe in such process, that it s not a guess, that it s something that will be extensively used at local level. Indeed, RCs actually guarantee the availability of technical support, directly or in cooperation with other local actors. such Implementation Units of the DBE environment, work to ensure effective operational management, cover the infrastructural requirements, prove technical services and consultancy solutions. In the pilot regions of the DBE project, the two functions - that of Sponsor and of Implementation Unit has been played by the same organization (ITA in Aragon, UCE in West Midlands and HTC in Tampere ), but the two functions can also be divided and the activities articulated among two different local players. In both cases, the engagement of other intermediate actors is important. A DBE, in this vision, is not an instrument for SMEs only, but it will enable territories to maximize their possibilities in term of collaboration and innovation. A Digital Business Ecosystem that strives towards being systematic in its approach needs to start by engaging companies, but it should not stop there - rather, it is fundamental that intermediaries and policy-makers are aware of how to ensure that all those that can provide the companies with value-add services engage with the environment. Resources should be dedicated not just to responding to their stated needs but also to guiding them towards more complex forms of planning. If the technological environment is populated by research centers, business incubators, consultants and venture capitalists, it will Digital Ecosystems 4.0.3

4 succeed in delivering solutions that go well beyond the short term needs of the SMEs, leading them towards collaborative growth projects that are highly knowledge-based. By participating, the local intermediate actor, will not only facilitate the SMEs engagement, but they will also reach their own goals (spread Ict adoption, facilitate organizational change, offering advances training, etc..). Those intermediaries, in fact, can use the DBE for offering SMEs new tools and methods through which to reach their own missions. 3. DBE implementation: key factors The articles of this Section will describe the initial experiences of DBE local implementation and how the process took place in different territories. In order to introduce it, we'll now briefly describe the variables that influenced those processes and that may influence other future experiences as well. In other words we ll try here to delineate those intervenient factors that a new regional should take in consideration when working for DBE implementation. Important variables are the following: Pre-existing socio-economic situation Expectation/vision about DBE as technological environment and as a local Innovation process Typology of selected RC Policy makers' level of interest Identified business domain/s Technological development of DBE components (possible new releases, new services, etc..) Pre-existing socio-economic situation refers to the centrality of local characteristics as we described in previous paragraphs. During the DBE project Census (2005 and 2006) it proposed a method for mapping those local characteristics: the Regional Maturity Grade. Combining qualitative/quantitative data with Social Network Analysis it took in consideration innovation attitude, Social Capital and SMEs ICT adoption. The second variable, expectation/vision about DBE, indicate the answers to the question why you decided to experiment DBE in your region?. That means: which benefits does a region aspect from DBE implementation? in which business sectors do your think it could be more useful? in order to solve which problems? what is the level of trust you had in it? The following variable, RC typology, refers to the nature, the mission and the organizational structure of each RCs, whether the territory choose to have one organization active both as Sponsor and as Implementation Unit, or more; the nature of its relations with local SMEs, decision makers, intermediate actors and so on. Identified Business Domain is another variable that influenced the process of DBE local implementation as each regions can choose a different approach (use DBE technological environment only in a specific domain or prefer a cross-domain vision). In the DBE project the business domain selection phase occupied not only the first period of the project, but also the following, both Tampere and West Midlands regions, in fact, changed their activity area in response of specific needs that arose during the project life cycle and the possibility to test DBE in a sector and then enlarge its fields of application is always a possibility. Digital Ecosystems 4.0.4

5 With the term technology development of DBE component we refer to the constant need for RCs to stay in line with possible DBE environment new releases or new services coming up in other territories or domains. The schema below represent a possible interpretation of how the just defined variables interact each other in shaping the DBE local implementation process. Fig.1: DBE local implementation: main factors Source: Censis, 2006 The first step would be that of benchmarking the regional situation using the Regional Maturity Grade or another methodology able to make a complete picture of the socioeconomic situation. Innovation is never only the act of exposing a territory to new technology but it always implies other dimensions; among others: cultural setting, social capital, SMEs specificities and approach toward ICT, collaboration and innovation attitudes. We would recommend having an extensive network analysis at regional level in order to intercept those actors that, more then others, can help the process of DBE adoption. Gate keepers - actors that can open the network to a wider group of users can be SMEs as in the case of West Midlands, projects as in the case of Tampere or intermediate actors such as Chamber of Commerce, SMEs association, Development agencies and so on. After this research phase, a clear plan of what the DBE implementation goal should be, is needed (in this context, participative methods such as GOPP or AESW - can help integrating DBE with already existing regional strategies and facilitating the collaboration among different local stakeholders). Identifying a specific business domain can be significant; it helps to reduce the complexity and the set of competences that the RCs need to handle and possible facilitate services sharing. In this phase (the second in the schema) a fine-tuning about RC typology can be performed in order to recognize additional Sponsors and the better Implementation Unit. The engagement strategy, defined, as concrete acts for recruiting, selecting and training the SMEs, have to be defined coherently. The strategy adopted in the DBE project (described by Dory In this book) demonstrates it to be successful and feasible and it is ready to be tested in other regions. The schema we proposed is, of course, is a minimalist one because, as we mentioned at the beginning of this article, we took the steps from a relativist approach in which each territory, each local community, each territorial innovation system has to find its personal declination of the Digital Business Ecosystem. Digital Ecosystems 4.0.5

6 Conclusions That of DBE implementation at local level has been defined as a process of regional learning and local knowledge creation. It implies an intense process of interaction in which knowledge transfer runs both explicitly and implicitly through personal contacts and through at-a-distance communication. Thanks to the actions endeavored by RCs, the knowledge generated by the DBE project can be translated at local level and adjusted to SMEs needs and possibilities. Consequently, DBE as a process can means quite a different thing in different territories, but in each of them it has to took a place at the crossing point of different actors trajectories and become widely recognized as significant for the local economy and future. The role of RCs - in their function of Sponsor and of Implementation Unit - has been and will be essential in other territories not only because they translated the DBE knowledge in something really soundly at local level, but also because - thank to their pre-existing social capital they reduced the uncertainties always correlated to an innovative process such as DBE, they assure a certain stability, which is essential for innovation and change. References Appadurai, A. (1996), Modernity at Large. Cultural Dimension of Globalization, university of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis Censis, (2004), Innovazione, sviluppo locale e gestione della conoscenza, Napoli, Franco Angeli Censis, (2005) Regional Catalysts: Innovation Cluster Benchmark Report, Work Package WP31:D31.3. Internal report available on Censis, (2006) Territorial Social Capital and Drivers SMEs. WP27, Del 27.1 Internal report available on Feldman, M. (1994), The Geography of Innovation, Kluwer, Amsterdam Morgan, K. (1997), The learning Region: institutions, innovation and regional renewal, Regional Studies Morgan, K. (2001), The Exaggerated Death of Geography: Localised Learning, Innovation and Uneven Development, paper presented at The Future of Innovation Studies Conference, Eindhoven university of Technology, September 2001 Nonaka, I and Takeuchi, H (1995), The Knowledge-Creating Company, OUP, Oxford Portes, A.(1998), Social Capital: Its Origins and Applications in Modern Sociology, Annual Review of Sociology 24: Salminem, E. Nicolai, A. Rasanen, P. Seppa, M. (2004) The Concept of Regional Catalyst in the Context of the Digital Business Ecosystem, Frontiers of E-Business Research, pp Accessed May 21st Shelton, R. (2006), 'Learning the Regional Catalyst Role in the West Midlands'. Notes for the ISBE Conference, Cardiff. Woolcock, M. (2001), The Place of Social capital in Understanding Social and Economic Outcomes, Isuma2, no.1:11-17 Digital Ecosystems 4.0.6