Interaction for resilience in complex environments: a systematic literature review on business ecosystems

Abstract

This paper aims to explore how interaction patterns enable resilience in business ecosystems facing turbulent environments. While organisational-level resilience has been extensively studied, how resilience emerges at the ecosystem level through relational mechanisms has received little systematic attention. This study addresses that gap using the industrial marketing and purchasing (IMP) perspective as a theoretical lens. The theoretical contribution is directed at ecosystem resilience research. The authors conducted a systematic literature review of 30 peer-reviewed articles from three journals, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing and Journal of Business Research. The IMP perspective served as the guiding analytical lens for interpreting the final sample. Their analysis reveals three distinct research streams: Resilient Innovation Ecosystems, Resilient Service Ecosystems and Resilient Entrepreneurial Ecosystems, each demonstrating recurring interaction patterns enabling resilience through distinct value logics. They introduce the Circle of Resilience framework, showing that ecosystem resilience emerges through bidirectional processes across four interconnected levels, enacted through four recurring interaction patterns: multi-level coordination, coevolutionary adaptation, resource mobilisation and knowledge sharing. Insights are provided for managers, policymakers and ecosystem orchestrators on enhancing resilience through relational investment, cross-boundary coordination and ecosystem-specific interaction pattern management. Policymakers are recognised not merely as external facilitators but as direct participants in the interaction patterns through which ecosystem resilience is developed and sustained. This study adopts a theory adaptation approach, using the IMP perspective to illuminate what has not yet been specified in ecosystem resilience research. It identifies interaction patterns as the primary relational mechanisms through which ecosystem-level resilience is enacted, introduces three ecosystem-specific value logics and presents the Circle of Resilience framework as a conceptual foundation for future empirical work.