Abstract

Interest in business ecosystems has grown exponentially over the last decade. This research focuses on the operational benefits of business ecosystems by investigating how embeddedness in business ecosystems influences supply chain competence. Specifically, it considers the mediating effect of external knowledge capacities (i.e. absorptive, desorptive and connective capacity). Data from 271 European firms in business ecosystems was collected to test three hypotheses using regression analysis with bootstrapping. Results indicate that business ecosystem embeddedness does not in itself improve supply chain competence. Rather, the relationship is explained through (i) absorptive and desorptive capacity as direct mediators; and (ii) connective capacity, which enhances supply chain competence indirectly by establishing and improving the linkages upon which absorptive and desorptive capacity are built. To the best of our knowledge, this is one of the first paper to demonstrate benefits of being embedded in business ecosystems other than in terms of innovation. Newly validated scales for business ecosystem embeddedness and connective capacity are provided.