Co-location for Shared Value Creation: Proximity in Innovation Ecosystems

In an era of digital proximity and virtual relations, location and place still confirm their key roles for creating value innovation ecosystems. While physical proximity is widely considered a driver of aggregation and value creation in ecosystems, it is increasingly clear that it is not enough: a proper ecosystem management (strategies and orchestration) are needed, too, and deserve further studies. Thus, this paper focuses on place-based innovation ecosystems and studies how physical proximity can be leveraged to enhance coopetition, alignment and orchestration among actors. Studying four cases of different innovation ecosystems it emerges, on the one hand, that orchestration needs to be coupled with a bottom-up governance structure and, on the other hand, that proactive involvement and alignment need to be strategically fostered since the very first moments of the ecosystem birth.