| Summary/Abstract |
Firms seeking to align with an emerging socio-technological paradigm for a future sustainable competitive advantage are faced with the decision of effectively positioning themselves within related business ecosystems. The positioning options broadly belong to assuming the functions of a platform, a supplier, a complementary, an intermediary or a combination of them. The timing and level of investment by each can be guided by insights on formation of ecosystems. In this study, we applied network analysis on historical deals data to derive insights on influencing factors and positioning strategies pursued by the hub firms that contributed through alliances to the formation of major ecosystems for the global Electric Vehicles (EV) industry. We introduce the notion of ecosystem formation hub firms that service a range of value chain functions under their prevailing governmental incentives structures. The prominent growth clusters have highlighted distinct regional policy environments, namely, rapid technology advancement push, market need fulfillment and early adoption stimulus. The firm strategies adopted for an emerging industry offer an ecosystem perspective to policy makers to design incentives for promoting formation hub firms and their complementors.
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