Received: 30 August 2018 Revised: 10 February 2020 Accepted: 11 February 2020 DOI: 10.1111/isj.12285 RESEARCH ARTICLE Digital transformation of business ecosystems: Evidence from the Korean pop industry Felix T. C. Tan1 |JanOndrus2 |BarneyTan3 | Jungsuk Oh4 1UNSW Australia School of Business, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, Australia 2Information Systems, Decision Sciences and Statistics (IDS) Department, ESSEC Business School, Singapore 3The University of Sydney Business School, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia 4Operations Management, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea Correspondence Felix T. C. Tan, UNSW Australia School of Abstract Business, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, Australia. The notion of business ecosystems is gaining prominence Email:
[email protected] among academics and practitioners. Scholars advise that business ecosystems are inherently fluid, unbounded and amorphous and thus that their boundaries can shift. Practi- tioners further suggest that business ecosystems are characterised by inter-network – as opposed to inter-firm – competition, and, moreover, that they are mainly driven by technological advancements. And yet few studies examine the role of information technology (IT) in driving boundary practices that enable the formation and transformation of business ecosystems. Through an in-depth case study of technology-enabled transformations within the Korean pop music (K-pop) industry, our study examines how the digital transformation of business ecosystems unfolded. Our study contributes to the emergent body of knowledge on business ecosystems in a number of ways. Our investigations uncover the conditions under which the constituent firms operate and analyse the role of IT and its implications on new organisational forms. From our analysis, we present a framework that reveals insights on critical boundary prac- tices and formative strategies for digital business ecosys- tems.