Disruption-induced digitalization in the maritime ecosystem: opportunities, unintended adversarial consequences and future research outlook

Purpose The present study investigates the opportunities of a rapid digital pathway and its unintended consequences in the maritime ecosystem (MECO). The rapid digitalization driven by disruptive events, including the COVID-19 pandemic, geopolitical tensions, and climate change-related incidents in the MECO, creates time-compressed technology adoption patterns that bypass implementation processes ordinarily followed under regular and planned digital rollouts. These temporal dynamics can create socio-technical disintegration, resulting in unintended outcomes, which MECO stakeholders need to optimize to remain efficient and resilient. Design/methodology/approach The study uses a systematic literature review and expert insights to investigate the research questions. Interpretive lenses of socio-technical systems theory (STS) are used to analyze the results. Findings The study reveals that accelerated digitalization enhances operational efficiency and digital maturity levels in the MECO. It simultaneously disintegrates the social and technical subsystems, where the technical subsystem exceeds the capacity of the social subsystem to adapt. The study identified four adversarial consequences: widened cybersecurity risks, increased long-term financial commitments, increased obsolete infrastructure and heightened cognitive overload. Practical implications Practically, the findings indicate that MECO stakeholders should avoid time-compressed digital rollouts and instead align implementation pace with cybersecurity readiness, staged investment evaluation, and workforce adaptation, as accelerated adoption increases cyber vulnerability, locks in long-term costs, creates obsolete infrastructure and intensifies operational strain rather than delivering durable resilience gains. Originality/value This work advances STS theory by identifying implementation speed as a critical determinant of socio-technical alignment under disruptive conditions. Practically, the findings indicate that MECO stakeholders should avoid time-compressed digital rollouts and instead align implementation pace with cybersecurity readiness, staged investment evaluation, and workforce adaptation, as accelerated adoption increases cyber vulnerability, locks in long-term costs, creates obsolete infrastructure, and intensifies operational strain rather than delivering durable resilience gains.