Title: Exploring the role of innovation ecosystem actors in shaping new product development and firm innovation performance

Authors: Herolinda Murati-Leka; Veland Ramadani

Addresses: Faculty of Business and Economics, South East European University, 1200 Tetovo, North Macedonia ' Faculty of Business and Economics, South East European University, 1200 Tetovo, North Macedonia

Abstract: Contemporary research in the field of innovation and sustainable development is being conducted to analyse and design different forms of organisation of economic actors that enable and facilitate innovation. The focus of this paper is on finding the symbiotic and reciprocal relationships among the actors and their impact, respectively, doing further in-depth research about the impact of the Innovation Ecosystem in the information and communication technologies (ICT) sector in Kosovo. The scientific contribution of this study lies in expanding the number of actors of the innovation ecosystem that have been studied by other authors and their correlation with the firm innovation performance. Furthermore, the heptagonal cooperation-influence model of innovation ecosystem actors on a firm's innovation and new product development designed by the authors of this paper will serve as a tool for measuring the impact of each innovation ecosystem actor on the firm's innovative performance.

Keywords: innovation ecosystem; ICT; information and communication technologies; firm performance; firm innovation; heptagon model.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTE.2025.146856

International Journal of Technoentrepreneurship, 2025 Vol.5 No.3, pp.276 - 305

Received: 20 Jul 2024
Accepted: 16 Dec 2024
Published online: 23 Jun 2025 *