As digitalisation increasingly encompasses entire service ecosystems, it modifies resource integration patterns that connect ecosystem actors through strong and weak ties. To clarify how technological development contributes to this change, and how resource integration transforms the service ecosystem, this qualitative case study explores the digitalisation strategy of a marketleading systems integrator in the maritime industry. Based on 40 depth interviews with managers, the findings show how technology increasingly serves as a key operant resource in the transformation of resource integration patterns. The study contributes to ecosystem dynamics research by identifying major differences between the pre-digitalised and digitalised states of a service ecosystem, and demonstrates the dual role of technology in both increasing pattern complexity and facilitating coordination of that complexity.
Purpose -Service-dominant logic acknowledges that actors can influence how service ecosystems evolve through institutional work, but empirical research is only nascent. This paper advances understanding of ecosystem change by proposing that dynamic capabilities are a special type of operant resources enabling actors to conduct institutional work. Consequently, the purpose of this paper is to explore which dynamic capabilities are associated with proactively influencing service ecosystems.Design/methodology/approach -Drawing on service-dominant logic, institutional work, and dynamic capabilities, this exploratory study assumes an actor-centric perspective and proposes a conceptual model with a hierarchy of dynamic capabilities as the antecedents for successfully influencing service ecosystems. The research model was tested with survey data using PLS-
SEM.Findings -Among the dynamic capabilities studied, 'visioning' and 'influencing explicit institutions' directly affect 'success in influencing service ecosystems', whereas 'timing' does so indirectly through 'influencing explicit institutions'. The other dynamic capabilities studied have no significant effect on 'success in influencing service ecosystems'. 'Success in influencing service ecosystems' positively affects the 'increased service ecosystem size and efficiency'.Practical implications -In addition to reactively positioning and competing at the marketplace, firms can choose to proactively influence their service ecosystems' size and efficiency. Firms aiming to influence service ecosystems should particularly develop dynamic capabilities related to visioning, timing, and influencing explicit institutions.Originality/value -This research is the first service-dominant logic investigation of the linkage between the actors' dynamic capabilities and their ability to influence service ecosystems.
Forward-looking firms are increasingly viewing markets as malleable and plastic systems that can be influenced. Hence, they are engaging in market-shaping to proactively augment existing business opportunities or to create new ones. One of the recurring themes in the emerging market-shaping literature is the importance of value propositions. Consequently, the purpose of this paper is to identify configurations of value proposition characteristics that are effective for focal firms engaging in market-shaping strategies. In our empirical study, we analyse market-shaping actions carried out by 21 case firms using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis. We identify four characteristics of market-shaping value propositions:(1) enhanced resource integration and related support as the core content of market-shaping value propositions, and (2) collaborative value proposing process, (3) systemic and verified value promise, and (4) new representations used in communication as the design characteristics of market-shaping value propositions. Further, we show that even though value propositions can shape markets without displaying all four of these characteristics, none of these characteristics alone can create all the expected outcomes. Hence, we identify distinct configurations of value proposition characteristics that are successful in either changing the elements comprising the market system or inducing an overall system-level market change.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.