Internationalisation through business ecosystems : What is the value of ecosystems in launching and growing digital firms in Europe?

Abstract: This thesis focus lies on the topic of business ecosystems and their use for digital firms in their internationalisation. The aim is to investigate the value creation and capture process for digital firms through the perspective of business ecosystems. For this endeavour, different concepts such as the born digital theory, key interlinked internationalisation process theories and business ecosystems theory are described throughout the literature review. Other models of previous researchers are used as a foundation to render an own created framework that is more applicable to the scenario and combination of the three aspects this paper investigates. The knowledge gap defined by the authors is about adding new insights on the ecosystem perspective in international businesses by exploring the value creation and capture process of born digitals. Furthermore, it will display the bottlenecks and benefits deriving from a business ecosystem. This leads to the research questions investigating the utilisation of business ecosystems for value creation and capture in internationalisation of digital firms, as well as the bottlenecks and benefits that come with it. For the empirical data collection to receive insights on the research questions and successfully draw conclusions, semi-structured interviews were conducted within the scope of a multiple case study. In addition, secondary data from various authors and experts in the respective research areas were used to bedrock the findings.As the results of the study showed, business ecosystems are greatly appreciated and utilised by digital firms. Moreover, they create value for them and let them strive in many ways, such as focusing on their core business, to succeed and be able to enter new markets. This is only possible with the cooperation of the various actors in the business ecosystem. Nevertheless, there are also severe bottlenecks that have been brought to light that reach beyond what has been present in the literature and considered by other scholars, as well as benefits that keep them competitive. Furthermore, this study provides managerial implications on how to deal with the liability of outsidership and smallness, and for the policy implications, that policymakers should be aware of global and political issues, and their impact on businesses.