The emergence and growth of ecosystem: The strategic role of digital innovation

Ecosystem is increasingly prevailing in global competitive landscape, which has received heightened attention in academia and practice. Extent literature has largely concentrated on the development of digital ecosystem in stage-based manner, however, viewing it from the perspectives of scale up and scope extension remains void. Based on an in-depth case study of a flower technology company in China, we inductively adopt the lenses of scale and scope to address how digital innovation can empower the development of ecosystem. In particular, we critically trace three mechanisms of ecosystem scale up: supplier agility, logistic optimization and network structure orchestration. Among which, we indicated a positive network effect in business digital ecosystem, identified influences of digital innovation toward market and further revealed the effectiveness of supplier inclusiveness in supply chain relationship. This model offers significant implications on information system, supply chain management literature and provides essential managerial implication.