A Research on the Evolutionary Mechanism of Future Industry Ecosystems: An Integrated Perspective Based on Technology-Organization-Context

Yin Ximing, Chen Feng, Chen Jin, Wu Shanchao

Foreign Economics & Management Vol. 48, Issue 05, pp. 3 - 21 (2026)  DOI:10.16538/j.cnki.fem.20260328.101

Summary

Future industries are a novel industrial form based on major cutting-edge and disruptive technological breakthroughs, driven by future development contexts, led by enterprises, and primarily achieved through large-scale application of new technologies, products, and contexts. They serve as a strategic initiative and breakthrough for building new pillar industries and fostering the growth of new quality productive forces. However, few studies have explored the evolutionary mechanism of future industry ecosystems. Based on the Technology-Organization-Context (TOC) framework, this paper explores the logic and process mechanism of future industry ecosystem evolution. The results show that: First, openness, dynamics, synergy, and emergence are the fundamental characteristics of future industry ecosystem evolution. Second, the driving mechanism of the evolution manifests as the bottom-up innovation emergence of the three subsystems (technology, organization, and context) and the top-down innovation leadership of the complex system over these subsystems. Third, the evolutionary process of future industry ecosystems transcends the traditional lifecycle model of “germination-growth-maturity-decline”, instead following the pattern of “germination–growth–maturity–renewal”. This enables industrial leapfrogging through future-oriented industrial transition after the maturity stage. This paper provides a novel theoretical perspective for understanding the characteristics, driving logic, and evolutionary process of future industry ecosystems. It also offers scientific decision-making and management practice insights for advanced planning and cultivation of future industries during the “15th Five-Year Plan” period, as well as accelerating the development of innovation-led new quality productive forces.

Keywords

future industries; context-driven innovation; Technology-Organization-Context (TOC); complex system; new quality productive forces