Enabling Innovation Through an Ecosystem
An exploratory case study which analyzes how innovation is enabled in a Fintech ecosystem and asks; in what ways can the facilitator of an ecosystem enable innovation in the finance industry?
The financial service industry is currently undergoing revolutions on several fronts. While facing more disruptions after Covid-19 pandemic, innovation in the industry is needed evidently. Although most managers face problems regarding the implementation of innovation and change. In established firms this problem is especially apparent.
One way of overcoming the problems both established and small companies encounter, are through collaboration between them. One proposed solution, which has been getting more and more attention lately, both in the corporate and academic world, is the concept of ecosystems.
In our thesis we studied how a newly founded Fintech ecosystem in Norway can enable innovation in an insurance fraud project. The purpose of our research was to explore how the Fintech ecosystem, as a facilitator, can support the innovation inside the insurance fraud project and between the participants of the project. Our main data source has been semi-structured interviews held with eight company representatives at seven different occasions.
The findings reveal that innovation could be enabled inside the ecosystem through provision of access, interface, and incentives. The findings also show that innovation was enabled within the more specific setting of the insurance fraud project, through the facilitation of supporting specialists, entrustment and being a neutral organizer. Our research proved that it is evident that innovation inside ecosystems could be a constructive way forward in the VUCA environment.
Our thesis was written within the FOCUS RaCE research project under the supervision of Professor Christine Meyer.