Interdisciplinary Centre for Digital Business Development (DBD), Department of Business Development and Technology (BTECH), School of Business and Social Sciences (Aarhus BSS), Aarhus University, 7400 Herning, Denmark.
Sensors (Basel). 2020 Oct 15;20(20):5842. doi: 10.3390/s20205842.
During the almost 27 years of its existence, the business ecosystem research has developed a substantial level of ambiguity and multifacetedness. Because 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 arena of digital business ecosystems that are driven by Internet of Things (IoT). Nonetheless, despite the efforts to mend the theoretical foundations and to close the gap between academia and empirical practice, the absolute majority of IoT-driven digital business ecosystem literature follows the trend of conceptual randomness while expanding the volume of publications exponentially. Therefore, in order to address this unfavourable increase in random adoption of distinct concepts that ultimately refer to the same subject matter, the author encourages other scholars involved in the research field of IoT-driven digital business ecosystems to make extended efforts and support the external validity of their research (as well as the relevance of the research stream as a whole) by bounding the IoT-driven digital business ecosystems on a rigorous basis through deploying the extant theory in a careful and appropriate manner. Via a thorough examination of the theoretical fundaments that underpin the concept of IoT-driven digital business ecosystem, and based on a concise thematic review of corresponding literature published until September 2020, this article articulates logic for viewing the conceptual hierarchy within the business ecosystem research and proposes six literature-based recommendations for developing further IoT-driven digital business ecosystem (DBE) research in a rigorous way.
在其存在的近 27 年中，商业生态系统研究已经发展出相当程度的模糊性和多面性。由于技术进步促进了互联互通和价值共创，该领域已经衍生出更多的特定领域分支，例如由物联网（IoT）驱动的数字业务生态系统领域。然而，尽管努力修复理论基础并缩小学术界与实证实践之间的差距，但绝对大多数由物联网驱动的数字业务生态系统文献仍然遵循概念随意性的趋势，同时使出版物数量呈指数级增长。因此，为了解决这种对不同概念的任意采用的不利增长，这些概念最终指的是同一主题，作者鼓励其他参与物联网驱动的数字业务生态系统研究领域的学者做出更多努力，并通过通过以谨慎和适当的方式运用现有理论，在严格的基础上限定物联网驱动的数字业务生态系统，来支持他们研究的外部有效性（以及整个研究流的相关性）。通过对物联网驱动的数字业务生态系统概念的理论基础进行彻底审查，并基于对截至 2020 年 9 月发表的相应文献的简明主题审查，本文阐述了在业务生态系统研究中观察概念层次结构的逻辑，并提出了基于文献的六项建议，以严谨的方式进一步发展物联网驱动的数字业务生态系统（DBE）研究。
