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Long abstract:

This paper discusses the translation of the ecosystem concept into economic reasoning. The ecosystem concept appeared in economics in the 1990s. James F. Moore was the first to use it in the Harvard Business Review to develop a systemic approach to the corporate world where "companies coevolve capabilities around a new innovation" (Moore 1993).

The results of my anthropological studies point to different ecosystem adaptations in today's economy: While some actors use the ecosystem concept in dynamic ways to structure novel self-contained networks, adaptations formulated on the corporate side tend to use holistic reasonings to promote entrepreneurial activities.

Drawing on insights from the history of science (Tansley 1935, Benson 2020), I examine these different examples of translating the ecosystem concept from biology to economics and show the elements that get lost in this translation process, which can lead to simplistic adaptations and boundary drawing effects that are not necessarily inherent to the ecological origins of ecosystem thinking.