The role of social platforms in transforming service ecosystems

Abstract

This study seeks to define and conceptualize the role of social platforms in transforming service ecosystems. The study explores how prime social movers use social platforms to enable transformation. The empirical context is Tunisia, a service ecosystem in transformation from repression to democracy. The study builds on ecosystems within management research and service ecosystem frameworks in service-dominant logic (SDL) and describe and analyze the process of institutionalization of social change. Using narratives from interviews, the research focuses on how people, especially social movers during the Arab Spring in Tunisia come together and integrate disruptive social resources to make a social revolution a reality. This study contributes with: (1) a comprehensive conceptualization of the role of social platforms in the institutionalization of a social change, (2) clarifying the change of social transformation that starts with people, evolves to meso and macro levels, and transforms society, and (3) identifying a new service transformation framework for service ecosystems.