Does Ecology Exist within Enterprises:A Case Study on Internal Marketization Scenarios from the Perspective of Eco-Business Model Interaction
In the current theoretical research field,the concept of"endoecology"is no longer unfamiliar.However,in the field of management research,ecological metaphors are still widely used in the study of inter-organizational relations,but the application of ecological constructs in the context of organizations is lacking in in-depth discussion,which makes the theoretical meaning of"endoecology"ambiguous.This study focuses on whether the theoretical connotation of ecologi-cal coevolution can be applied in the context of organizations,and focuses on the interaction process among internal eco-logical members.At present,many enterprises are trying market-oriented practices that focus on the interaction between internal mem-bers and simplify the complex cause and effect of internal and external interactions.Therefore,this scenario can be se-lected to conduct a detailed study on the vertical case of internal marketization of a customer service department of an en-terprise from the perspective of ecology-business model interaction.It also studies in what organizational environment and how to carry out internal marketization.This paper chooses the case study method to build the internal marketization evolution mechanism model by studying the internal marketization evolution process of a company's customer service from 2019 to 2021.The results show that in-ternal marketization does not repeat transactions according to the given structure,but reflects the dynamic characteristics of the iterative evolution of business models.The dynamic process can be described as the change of three business model elements:value proposition,core resource capability and pricing model.Like the external market,its good operation can-not be separated from a series of institutional support,and the market environment and its changes also create conditions for the evolution process.In this process,the characteristics of the internal organizational environment are consistent with the theoretical de-scription of ecology in the view of ecological co-evolution,and the behavior characteristics of the internal organizational members are consistent with the description of the subjective characteristics of the members in the literature.The practice of headquarters exerting influence but not directly controlling is consistent with the description of the ancillary characteris-tics of the relationship in the literature;The strategy-mediated connection between internal and external environments con-forms to the description of the characteristics of open exchange in the literature,verifies the possible existence of en-doecology and clarifies the boundary conditions for its existence.Therefore,on the one hand,it is possible to integrate the related studies of endoecology and exoecology into the common theoretical perspective;On the other hand,before inclu-sion,it is necessary to check whether the internal selection environment conforms to the three major characteristics of member subjectivity,relationship attachment and boundary openness,which in turn depend on specific environmental fac-tors and corporate strategic choices.In addition,the theoretical contribution of this paper is also reflected in two aspects.On the one hand,this paper chal-lenges the underlying assumption that ecology must lie outside the boundaries of the firm,thus broadening the boundary conditions of ecological research.The future ecological research needs to study the internal and external ecology as a whole.By verifying the effectiveness of two cross-organizational boundary concepts(ecosystem and business model)in the context of the organization,it echoes the trend in the literature to dilute the internal and external boundaries of the or-ganization.On the other hand,this study enriches the emerging perspective of eco-business model interaction in the litera-ture.It expands the framework for understanding business models from the perspective of ecology-business model interac-tion,further taps the subjective initiative of ecological subjects,expands the scope of business model-related dynamics from the perspective of ecology-business model interaction,and enriches the ecological enabling mechanism from the per-spective of ecology-business model interaction.This study opens up a novel application scenario for the ecology-business model interaction perspective:internal mar-ketization.The advantage of this perspective lies in its systematic and dynamic investigation of internal marketization be-havior.In addition,this paper only selects one enterprise to carry out a case study,which leads to certain limitations of the selected samples.Whether the conclusions obtained are universal in other industries and fields needs to be further verified.Therefore,further application of this perspective in this context needs to be further explored in the future.
万方数据
维普
