Industry Transformation – Conceptual Considerations from an Evolutionary Perspective

摘要

The explanandum ‘industry transformation’ is conceptualized against the background of market process theories. A system of indicators to measure industry transformation is set up and typical patterns of development and challenges for entrepreneurial action on business-to-business markets are derived. Analyzing industry transformation requires a co-evolutionary approach. Change is then detected using different indicators, exemplified using the German healthcare sector as an insight to business-to-business markets in transition. Entrepreneurial action is the key to an evolutionary understanding of business systems as drivers of change processes and the fact that – at the same time – they are driven by them. Typical features of industry transformation include historicity, path dependencies, and evolutionary interpretations of specificity leading to trajectories and multiple patterns like for example (dis-/re-)intermediation and cooperation.