Toward a meta-framework for digital ecosystem concepts: A comparative review on the state of research, concept relationships, and future directions

Digital ecosystems have gained increased importance and scholarly recognition in recent years. Various (digital ecosystem) concepts emerged to enhance the understanding of their actors, elements, and dynamics. However, digital concepts have been neglected in the consolidation and differentiation efforts of the scholarly ecosystem debate. Therefore, our comparative literature review steps in to contribute to more clarity on the four most commonly used digital ecosystem concepts: Digital Ecosystem, Digital Business Ecosystem, Digital Entrepreneurial Ecosystem, and Digital Platform Ecosystem. To provide insight into these concepts and their relationships, the review compares the relevant literature regarding years of publication, proposed concept definitions, underlying theories, addressed research themes, geographic origins of investigated data, and methodologies applied. Our findings provide a visual knowledge map of the current state of digital ecosystem research, highlighting both concept-specific and cross-concept insights. Discussing these findings, we derive 11 concept-specific and four cross-concept future research questions. In addition, we develop a meta-framework of digital ecosystem concept relationships that identifies the theoretical origin of eight knots in the digital ecosystem knowledge conglomerate. These theoretical contributions serve as starting points toward a meta-framework like the initial loose threads of a crumpled knitting wool ball. We propose three key areas for future research: (1) further theoretical refinement of digital ecosystem concepts, (2) investigations into the relationship between digital concepts and their traditional (non-digital) counterparts, and (3) more empirical research on developing and emerging countries. • Various digital ecosystem concepts have emerged but lack clear differentiation. • Comparative review reveals relationships between four digital ecosystem concepts. • Map of digital ecosystem research suggests key questions for theoretical refinement. • More studies on digital ecosystems in developing countries are needed. • Theoretical links between digital and traditional ecosystems require clarification.