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This paper is amongst the first to examine coopetition strategy for sustainable development at the network level. Companies who want to successfully implement complex innovative technologies that support sustainable development need to collaborate with other actors of the innovation ecosystem, including their competitors, so that they can develop standards, interoperable products, pool knowledge, and resources and bundle forces to compete against other technologies. Collaboration with competitors brings benefits, but also many risks. We investigated how firms cope with these risks when establishing an innovation ecosystem to implement a new technology in society. We conducted research in the Dutch smart grids sector and explored how these firms minimize inherent risks of coopetition. We found that system‐building actors in the Dutch smart grid field not only minimize inherent risks, but from the start of their collaboration they implement so‐called enablers to prevent these risks upfront. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For their technological sustainability innovations to become successful, entrepreneurs can strategically shape the technological field in which they are involved. The technological innovation systems (TISs) literature has generated valuable insights into the processes which need to be stimulated for the successful development and implementation of innovative sustainability technologies. To explore the applicability of the TIS framework from the perspective of entrepreneurs, we conducted a case study in the Dutch smart grids sector. We found that the TIS framework generally matches the perspectives of entrepreneurs. For its use by entrepreneurs, we suggest a slight adaptation of this framework. The process ‘Market formation’ needs to be divided into processes that are driven by the government and processes that are driven by entrepreneurs. There should be a greater emphasis on collaborative marketing, on changing user behaviour and preferences and on the development of fair and feasible business models. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The implementation of innovative sustainability technologies often requires far-reaching changes of the macro environment in which the innovating firms operate. Strategic management literature demonstrates that the chances of a successful diffusion and adoption of an innovative technology in society are increased if the firms wanting to commercialize this technology collaborate in networks or industry clusters to build a favourable environment for their technology. However, the strategic management literature does not offer advice on how to strategically create this supportive external environment. We fill this gap with complementary insights from the technological innovation systems literature. We introduce the concept of strategic collective system building; this concept describes processes and activities that networks of actors can strategically engage in to collectively build a favourable environment for their innovative sustainability technology. Furthermore, we develop a strategy framework for collective system building. To underpin our theoretical analysis empirically, we have conducted a case study in the Dutch smart grid field. The resulting strategy framework consists of four key areas: technology development and optimization, market creation, socio-cultural changes and coordination. Each of these key strategic areas is composed of a set of system-building activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]