Exploring the Digital Business Ecosystem of the Internet of Things in Emerging Economies with a Focus on the Role of Pseudo-Private Companies

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the emerging drivers of the economy that transforms the business landscape and forms of collaboration and value creation. In this study, we performed a Delphi-based study to explore the digital business ecosystem (DBE) of IoT in emerging economies, focusing on power dynamics among actors, the processes of value co-creation, topologies, and critical success factors affecting the health of the ecosystem. We conducted two panels of a three-round Delphi study from 2017 through 2019 among Iranian IoT experts. This study identifies two types of the digital business ecosystems surrounding IoT in Iran. One type comprises only pseudo-private companies that have strong interactions with government organizations and state-owned banks. The other type of digital business ecosystem surrounding IoT technology comprises start-ups and private small and medium companies that have no interaction with pseudo-private companies. The interaction of start-ups and Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) is mainly with universities. The study shows that pseudo-private companies play a dominant role in the Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Government (B2G) markets while SMEs and start-ups have a dominant role in the B2C market and promote creativity and innovation in the Business to Customer (B2C) market. This study extends the literature on digital business ecosystems with a focus on the health of the DBEs of IoT technologies and the potential for future innovation in the digital economy.