Framing the Competitive Behaviors of Niche Players: The Electric Vehicle Business Ecosystem Perspective

The approach on the research of business ecosystems’ actors evolved as result of the analogy with the biological ecosystem. Based on this analogy, three major strategies were selected and defined, in following roles: keystones, dominators and niche players. However, the behavior of different actors was framed differently within already existing industries. From this point of view, this paper aims to emphasize the change of actor behaviors based on the main adopted strategy. Therefore, the role of niche players was chosen as analysis unit. A critical analysis of the literature was performed in order to classify the features of niche players. Hence, the competitive behaviors of actors were identified based on their visibility in relation to their impact on the business ecosystem. From this point of view, based on a case study approach, evidence of identified competitive behaviors in the automotive industry was provided. The result emphasized the dynamic change of actors’ behavior within their business ecosystem and the importance of the actors’ positioning in relation to the produced effect. Additionally, based on framed competitive behaviors, the linkage between the adopted strategy and the actors’ performance within the automotive business ecosystem was illustrated.