From supply chain configurations to digitally enabled ecosystems

Industrial manufacturers are increasingly shifting from traditional hierarchical supply chain configurations toward digitally enabled ecosystems. This requires several initiatives, including training, developing ICT tools, and IoT systems. We collectively refer to all these initiatives as “Projects”. Despite projects being key to transforming manufacturing organizations' business models from supply chains to ecosystems, the management literature remains silent on these projects and their agency. This paper identifies such projects and describes how they operate in this context, their mechanisms of action, and their outcomes. We used design-oriented research synthesis to examine empirical research articles on ecosystem projects across various epistemological communities. We validated our findings by conducting four workshops with two incumbent manufacturers implementing projects to shift from the supply chain to ecosystem organizing. Our findings show that industrial manufacturers engage in projects encompassing new product development, service innovation, creation of digital platforms, human resource development, and capabilities development initiatives. We identify two main mechanisms through which these ecosystem projects support the transformation from a supply chain to an ecosystem organizing, i.e., (1) enhancing collaboration, (2) improving performance.