Business ecosystem embeddedness to enhance supply chain competence: the key role of external knowledge capacities

Interest in business ecosystems has grown exponentially over the last decade. This article focuses on operational benefits of by investigating how embeddedness influences supply chain competence. Specifically, it considers mediating effect external knowledge capacities (i.e. absorptive, desorptive and connective capacity). Data from 271 European firms was collected to test paper’s hypotheses using regression analysis with bootstrapping. Results indicate that ecosystem does not itself improve Rather, relationship is explained through (i) absorptive capacity as direct mediators; (ii) capacity, which enhances competence indirectly improving retention for capacity. To best our knowledge, this first paper demonstrate being embedded other than terms innovation. Newly validated scales are provided.