Innovation Ecosystem Analysis 1986-2017: A Citation-Based Literature Survey

This paper uses the method of main path and content analysis to analyze the important scholars, influential journals and key literatures in the field of innovation ecosystem. The theoretical development skeleton of innovation ecosystem research has been clearly constructed. The study shows that the innovation ecosystem theory, as a new field of research, is developing rapidly. The research focuses on three new fields: business, technology and service innovation ecosystem. The research early focused on strategic management and innovation systems, but it focuses on the ecology of various disciplines now. Value co-creation gradually becomes the main driving force to promote the development of innovation ecosystem. Further, based on the structural analysis of documents, the paper constructs a panoramic theoretical framework for the development of the innovation ecosystem from the perspectives of innovation, driving factors, innovation subject, innovation structure, innovation community and innovation risk, putting forward the future research direction of the innovation ecosystem.