Explaining Digital Ecosystem Evolution: The Revelatory Case of a Digital Platform Start-Up in the 3d Printing Industry

Abstract

Ecosystems have been shown to provide a suitable perspective for analysis of value co-creation through different actors. In this research-in-progress paper, we focus on the emergence and evolution of a digital platform as the core of a 3D printing ecosystem. The digital platform automatically eradicates design issues of 3D print files, thereby making 3D printing accessible to a broader range of actors and removing friction between suppliers and consumers in the 3D printing service industry. Conducting an inductive in-depth case study, we set out to identify the mechanisms that underlie the emergence and evolution of the digital platform and branching of its services. Our findings shed light on how mechanisms related to upstream, core, and downstream adaptations of the digital platform led to an iterative evolution of the 3D printing service ecosystem.