A Conceptual Framework for Design Experience Consistency in Digital Business Ecosystems

Digital business ecosystems connect products, services and artificial intelligence through interdependent organisations. Delivery can continue while a service ceases to provide the value promised to its user. This conceptual study examines that discrepancy through a synthesis of 119 sources. Dynamic value coherence is the capacity to sustain a recognisable relationship between the value users expect and the value they experience as products, services or providers change, within a stated commitment and legitimate conditions of use. The commitment provides the reference for evaluation. Anchoring makes it recognisable in meaning and action; extension carries and adapts service functions across encounters; governance specifies permissions and correction responsibilities. These proposed relationships connect users’ recognition and realisation of value to the design and governance arrangements that sustain it through change. Four configurations compare how services support the commitment and adapt to changing tasks. A short hypothetical example distinguishes a breached commitment, an unmet preference and legitimate adaptation under the same observed change in behaviour. The source-linked concepts and attributes are distinguished from the authors’ theoretical synthesis, which includes four propositions for empirical testing. The framework offers a way to examine how users continue to recognise and realise value across providers, and how design and governance can sustain or restore that continuity.