I've seen all kinds of players in business ecologies.
Some do what some earlier posts on this thread mentioned, gravitate to
situations that involve them specializing and avoiding wasteful
head-to-head competition. AMP, Rolex, Solectron and many in the German
mittlestand are masters at this.
But others are chronic competitors, with a deep inclination to go after
other's markets. Pepsi, P&G, Toyota, Marriott and MCI come to mind.
Still others have a real genius, or compulsion, to destablize the olds
ways of doing things. This was Apple and Polaroid in their good old days.
Virgin Airways, amazon.com and CarMax are doing this now.
I don't think one of these is more natural or ecological than any other.
There are lots of ways to play the game in business, not just one path of
least resistance.
Growth is often sustained when the ecology is rich with a variety of
players.
Bob Tomasko
--Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>