The key role of the event in combining business and community-based logics for managing an ecosystem: Empirical evidence from Lyon e-Sport

The spatiotemporal management of ecosystems remains a topical issue in the strategic management literature. This research proposes an original approach by examining the key role played by events in ecosystem management. Drawing on the single case of a major French e-sport event (Lyon e-Sport), we study how an event allows the combination of both business and community logics to provide a simultaneous but discontinuous ecosystem management. Our findings contribute to recent research and show that (1) the event provides a space for structuring and combining business and community-based logics, (2) the community logic has to be hierarchically managed to allow the business logic to emerge and develop the ecosystem, and (3) various spatial and digital mechanisms related to the event support the combination of both business and community-related logics.