Towards Consensus in IoT Driven Business Ecosystem Research : A Position Paper

摘要

During the almost 27 years of its existence, the business ecosystem research has developed a substantial level of ambiguity and multifacetedness. Due to the technological advancements that promote interconnectedness and value co-creation, the field has consequently spun off into more domain specific branches, such as the arenas of digital business ecosystems or business ecosystems driven by IoT. Nonetheless, despite the efforts to mend the theoretical foundations and close the gap between academia and empirical practice, the absolute majority of IoT driven business ecosystem literature follows the trend of conceptual randomness while expanding the volume of publications exponentially. Therefore, in order to tackle this conceptual inflation, the author encourages other researchers to make extended effort and increase the external validity of their researches, as well as the relevance of the research stream as a whole, by bounding the IoT driven business ecosystems on a rigorous basis and deploying the extant theory in an careful and appropriate manner. Overall, this position paper contributes to the research area of IoT driven business ecosystems by unfolding the importance of focusing on developing conceptual consistency within the discussed emerging field of interest.