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This study aims to investigate business-to-business (B2B) engagement within an internet of things (IoT) ecosystem. A conceptual framework is proposed that can be used for building engagement strategies considering key actors within an IoT ecosystem.

The study used an integrative literature review as a research method and investigated engagement across several disciplines along with antecedents and outcomes of engagement to form an understanding of IoT engagement.

The findings in this study revealed IoT engagement antecedents as IoT readiness, commitment, communication, involvement and support and, consequently, the outcomes of IoT engagement as trust, loyalty, better performance and satisfaction. Furthermore, IoT engagement needs to be considered from three perspectives, namely, from a multidimensional perspective, beyond a dyad perspective and from the service-dominant logic perspective, which suggests thinking of goods as services and highlights the importance of value co-creation.

As the study of B2B engagement within the IoT ecosystem is conceptual, empirical investigations are suggested for elaborating on the findings.

The conceptual framework provides managers within an IoT ecosystem with thorough recommendations on why to change their perspectives toward engagement; it points out drivers of engagement that need to be maintained and adds IoT readiness as a new antecedent to engagement literature.

This study contributes a coherent conceptualization of actors’ engagement within IoT ecosystems and enhances both the theoretical and practical domain of B2B engagement.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an in-depth understanding of actor engagement (AE) on social media by proposing a holistic and integrative conceptual framework.

Based on a sample of 118 articles, the paper draws on the service-dominant logic (SDL)-based service ecosystem perspective combined with the tenets of relational dialectics as theoretical lenses to inform AE research in social media.

The paper proposes a framework of AE in social media called the TASC model, an acronym of Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis-Conflict. TASC introduces the dialectical nature of AE and discusses the contexts and levels of AE in the social media ecosystem and their evolving processes.

Firms can apply the knowledge provided by TASC to gather marketing intelligence and develop marketing strategies to anticipate tensions, motivate the desired AE intensity and valence and reinforce value co-creation in the social media ecosystem.

TASC is a comprehensive framework that, for the first time, explains engagement at all levels of the social media ecosystem by combining the SDL-based service ecosystem view with the relational dialectics perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and delineate research directions that guide future empirical studies exploring how engagement platforms facilitate value co-creation and actor engagement in the context of the sharing economy.

The authors adopt a midrange theorizing approach with service-dominant logic as the integrating meta-theoretical perspective to develop a theoretical framework about service platforms, engagement platforms, and actor engagement in information communication technology (ICT) mediated environments. The authors then contextualize the framework for the sharing economy.

The authors introduce 20 unique research questions to guide future studies related to service ecosystems, engagement platforms, and actor engagement practices in the context of the sharing economy.

The sharing economy is an emerging phenomenon that is driven by the development and proliferation of engagement platforms. The engagement platform concept therefore provides a novel perspective for exploration of how ICT can be utilized to facilitate value co-creation and engagement amongst interdependent economic actors in a service ecosystem.

The purpose of this paper is to guide future academic research, rather than managerial practice. Future research based on the framework can help guide decision-makers to implement and use engagement platforms more effectively.

This paper offers new insight into the important intersection of ICT and service research, and guides future studies exploring the role of engagement platforms in the context of the sharing economy.

Understanding the role and implications of information and communication technology (ICT) in service is the key research priority for service science and the management of service quality. The purpose of this paper is to address this priority by providing insights into the role of “engagement platforms” (EPs), physical or virtual customer touch points where actors exchange resources and co-create value. Despite an emerging body of literature that emphasizes the fit between engagement and technology-enabled service contexts, EPs remain ill-defined. Specifically, little is known about the particular types of EPs, their characteristics, and implications for the performance of service ecosystems and managing service quality.

By drawing on two illustrative case studies, the authors investigate and theorize about the characteristics and dynamics of EPs in virtual/physical contexts, and identify if, how and to what extent configurations of EPs may enhance resource exchange within and across service ecosystems.

By building on emerging research at the service/engagement interface, the paper introduces the notion of the “engagement ecosystem,” as a configuration of individual, mutually dependent EPs that represent specific interactivity-facilitative loci. The paper explicates the relevance of the model and highlight opportunities for future research in this emerging field of inquiry.

The work addresses the call for research at the intersection of ICT and service science through development and application of the engagement ecosystem concept. The theorizing process draws on two illustrative case studies, and thereby provides a theoretical contribution and foundation for future research in this emerging area.

The authors guide managerial decision-making regarding the implementation, adoption, and utilization of engagement ecosystems. Furthermore, the nature of “engagement” as a bridging concept implies that the work can help managers to operationalize service-centric thinking.

By showing how individual EPs form engagement ecosystems, the paper bridges theory and practice, and offers new insight in the realm of practical application of the S-D logic.

This paper explores the design dimensions that foster identity construction, legitimation, and growth of digitally mediated platform ecosystems.

A midrange theorizing approach was adopted to assimilate and induct the extant literature on ecosystems, platform business models and innovation, yielding testable propositions on ecosystem design for empirical testing.

The paper suggests that decentralized governance, partner engagement and shared context are three dimensions of criticality for designing a distinct platform ecosystem. These design dimensions nurture interactions, transactions, relationships between platform participants and external actors to make ecosystems authentic and legitimate. Decentralization is relevant for inducing flexibility and autonomy of participants on the platform. Engagement impacts the intensity of relationships the platform has with other firms in the ecosystem, while shared context is essential for creating knowledge and harnessing innovation on the platform.

The paper identifies a set of three testable propositions on ecosystem design for further empirical analysis by ecosystem researchers.

To achieve future readiness, organizations must become resilient to the market environment. With that intent, traditional businesses are revising their operating models to become more collaborative, integrative and efficient. Adoption of digital initiatives for redesigning towards platform ecosystems will make traditional models more relevant as markets evolve. But as a new organization form, platform ecosystem faces the challenge of legitimacy. Author suggests that managers use the organization design lever to meet the challenge.

Emergence of platform-based businesses and transformation of existing models to platform ecosystems are impacting today's competitive environment. During initial phases of evolution, ecosystems aim for identity and legitimacy. The authors contribute to organizational aspects of the platform ecosystem design literature by identifying decentralization of governance, engagement and shared context as dimensions of criticality for future-ready platforms. Secondly, these dimensions are associated with identity and legitimation of platform ecosystems. Decentralization is relevant for supply-side producers of goods and services on the platform, engagement has impact on both supply and demand-side participants of platforms, and shared context is essential for knowledge creation and harnessing innovation.

To further extend the understanding of multidimensional engagement of stakeholders embedded in service systems, the purpose of this paper is to explore the antecedents that constitute stakeholder engagement in inter-organizational service ecosystems where stakeholders co-create innovations over time.

An explorative, longitudinal case study design is employed to analyze stakeholders’ engagement in co-innovation in an inter-organizational service system in an engineering context.

The study identifies eight antecedents for stakeholder engagement in innovation in the context of a B2B environment. Building on related engagement research, the empirical data show how stakeholder engagement is influenced at both individual and organizational levels by the antecedents friendship, common experiences, self-representation, trust, a common goal, resource dependency, level in the hierarchy, institutional arrangements, and local proximity.

The paper extends current understanding of engagement and illuminates stakeholder engagement on a micro level, addressing four key issues for stakeholder engagement in a service ecosystem. How can stakeholder engagement be maintained over time? Does stakeholder engagement at specific hierarchical levels enhance or hinder inter-organizational co-innovation? Is strong engagement necessary for innovation activities? Are the different engagement antecedents linked?

Given the growing attention on service ecosystem and the role played by technology and institutions in shaping of actors’ relations and interactions, the purpose of this paper is to examine a tourism environment with the lens of service ecosystem in order to derive a deeper understanding on the underlying mechanisms.

A mixed methodology was used. First, literature review based on service ecosystems framework was conducted to critically analyze the roles of technology and institutions to shape a tourism service ecosystem. Then a case study was conducted.

Two main findings are described: the role and the characteristics of physical and virtual engagement touchpoints in the emergence of a tourism service ecosystems; and the relationship between technology and institutions in the resource integration. In particular, the authors conclude that institutions can shape the usage of technology which, in turn, can enable and imply the emergence of new institutions, continually adjusting the system of the tourism service ecosystem.

The analysis contributes to deepening the knowledge about value co-creation processes and engagement expedients in tourism destination, explaining the role of institutions and technology in helping actors to integrate resources and exchange services. The study can also be useful for practitioners in search for powerful tool to increase the competitiveness of a tourism destination.

The study is one of the first attempts to conceptualize and operationalize a tourism destination in a service ecosystem framework. In this way it contribute to enhance scientific knowledge in a tourism management literature.

Emergence is a key concept in service-dominant (SD) logic; however, the literature is neonatal on the underlying mechanisms that lead to emergence within service ecosystems. This study aims to address the call by Vargo et al. (2022) for understanding the role of actor engagement in emergence of novel outcomes, by identifying a process of how various actor roles in entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) emerge as resource through the actor engagement.

Following a longitudinal design, this study conduct interviews from 20 respondents over eight months in three phases (group interviews, post-training, post-funding). This study analyzes the respondents’ engagement in an entrepreneurial service context. This study uses qualitative inductive approach and thematic analysis.

Results show that actor roles emerge as role expectations from essential provider and beneficiary position in a service ecosystem through actor role readiness, manifested as engagement properties in the actor engagement process. This study identifies five actor roles and their corresponding role readiness dimensions that emerge. Based on these propositions through which the authors position generic actor roles emergence within the actor engagement process in a service ecosystem.

This paper advances the understanding of micro-level process in emergence literature in SD logic by providing a conceptual understanding of emergence of actor roles as a resource through actor engagement. By grounding the study in EE, this study provides empirical evidence to the underlying mechanisms at the micro level of resource emergence process in a service ecosystem.

The purpose of this paper is to broaden extant understanding of actor engagement behavior beyond its currently dominant dyadic (micro-level) focus, by examining it from multiple levels of aggregation within a service ecosystem framework.

This conceptual paper draws on service-dominant logic and structuration theory as theoretical lenses to inform engagement research.

By means of a stepwise exercise of “zooming out,” the paper introduces a multi-perspective (micro-, meso-, macro- and meta-level) view of actor engagement that develops understanding of multiple engagement contexts, and suggests that balancing multiple roles may result in actor disengagement behavior. The role of reference groups and role conflict associated with balancing multiple roles is critical to understanding why engaged actor proclivities may wax and wane between contexts.

The paper offers a set of five propositions that can be utilized by engagement scholars undertaking further research in this area.

Firms need to understand the values and norms embedded in diverse engagement contexts which can affect actor groups’ needs and motivations. Firms should develop appropriate organizational mechanisms to facilitate (rather than impede or obstruct) the desired behaviors of engaged actors.

The broader context within which engaged actors operate, and its effects on engagement, has been largely overlooked to date. By broadening the analytical perspective on engagement beyond the dyadic this paper reveals previously unaddressed aspects of this phenomenon, such as the role of disengagement behavior, and the effects of multiple engagement contexts on actors’ future behaviors.

The place branding process in cities and tourism destinations is usually steered by a central organization but in rural places, a focal actor often does not exist. The purpose of this paper is to identify which approaches to place branding processes are applied in different rural places. This is done by seeing the place branding process as a service ecosystem with focus on actor engagement.

A theoretical framework based on the concepts of service ecosystems and actor engagement is developed. This is then applied to analyse qualitative data collected through semi-structure interviews with participants from several Danish rural places.

The authors identify four different types of rural place branding processes along three dimensions: existence and type of a focal actor; type, extent and temporal properties of other actor groups’ engagement; and organization of the process, including its formalization, centralization and strategic focus. Type 1 is a highly formalized, centralized and strategically driven process under the leadership of a public authority. The other types are community-based approaches. Type 2 is formalized, centralized and strategically driven process. Type 3 is less formalized but also centralized and strategically focused. Type 4 is a non-formalized, decentralized process with ad hoc initiatives.

This paper applies a service marketing-based framework to analyse qualitative empirical data from different cases of rural places and identify different place branding processes.