Kumulative Dissertation, Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, 2025

Von der genannten Lizenzangabe ausgenommen sind folgende Bestandteile dieser Dissertation: Paper II.1 "The twofold transition: Framing digital innovations and incumbents' value propositions for sustainability" (S. 53-89) und Paper II.3 "How companies move to circularity: Adjusting external collaboration and internal reorganizing" (S. 135-168) stehen unter der CC-Lizenz CC-BY.

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The cumulative dissertation explores how firms navigate the twin transitions of digitalization and sustainability within the ecosystem context. It addresses research gaps concerning the content of innovation, its perception, and the context in which innovation unfolds.
Regarding the content of innovation, the dissertation highlights that digital and sustainable innovations increasingly shape industries but are still insufficiently connected in both re-search and practice. Digital technologies foster generativity and convergence (Yoo et al., 2012; Lyytinen et al., 2016), while sustainable innovations such as the circular economy (CE) demand disruptive change across firm and industry boundaries (Kirchherr et al., 2017; Geisendorf & Pietrulla, 2018). The concept of digital sustainability (George et al., 2021; Guandalini, 2022) emerges as a nexus where digital technologies advance ecological and social goals.
With respect to the perception of innovation, the dissertation draws on framing theory (Or-likowski & Gash, 1994; Kaplan & Tripsas, 2008) to show that technological frames decisive-ly shape business model innovation. Congruent frames enable smoother implementation, whereas incongruence may cause conflict but can also foster creativity (Spieth et al., 2021). This role of framing is particularly relevant in sustainability-oriented innovations, where multiple stakeholders hold divergent interpretations (Markard et al., 2016).
Concerning the context of innovation, the dissertation highlights that innovation increasing-ly requires interorganizational collaboration. Ecosystem research identifies new roles such as complementors and prosumers that alter value creation logics (Adner & Kapoor, 2010; Rayna & Striukova, 2021). Customers evolve from consumers to co-creators (Nambisan & Baron, 2009; Ng et al., 2019), while the successful implementation of smart services depends on both ecosystem maturity and actor roles (Jacobides et al., 2018; Aarikka-Stenroos et al., 2022).
Overall, the dissertation contributes to theory by linking digital and sustainable innovation, by advancing the understanding of frames in ecosystem emergence, and by clarifying the interplay between internal organizing and external collaboration. It also provides managerial implications for firms striving to balance technological transformation with sustainability goals.

The first paper, The twofold transition: Framing digital innovations and incumbents’ value propositions for sustainability (Bähr & Fliaster, 2023), investigates how incumbents in the German energy sector frame digital innovations—specifically virtual power plants—and how these frames shape sustainable business models and value propositions. The analysis of seven case studies demonstrates that incumbents who adopt single-focused frames emphasize digitalization mainly for economic efficiency, resulting in limited contributions to sustaina-bility transitions. By contrast, incumbents who adopt twofold frames integrate both digital and sustainability perspectives and thus create richer value propositions, positioning them-selves either as renewable energy enablers or as system supporters. The study shows that technological frames (Orlikowski & Gash, 1994; Kaplan & Tripsas, 2008) are a crucial ante-cedent for sustainable business model innovation and strengthens the system perspective in business models for sustainability (Bocken et al., 2014; Bidmon & Knab, 2018). It challenges the stereotype of incumbents as inhibitors of sustainability (Markard, 2018) and demonstrates that they can act as powerful enablers of the energy transition.

The second paper, Framing struggles in emerging ecosystems: Frames of chemical recycling and ecosystem relationships (Bähr, 2022), examines how frame congruence and incongru-ence influence relationships within an emerging ecosystem around chemical recycling. The analysis of more than 500 documents from 271 actors shows that congruence in technology maturity frames supports collaboration, while incongruence—especially concerning the cir-cular economy fit—isolates actors and hinders cooperation. However, such contestation can also stimulate broader sustainability debates and create space for alternative solutions (Ferra-ro et al., 2015; Hiatt & Carlos, 2019). This paper extends framing theory from the organiza-tional to the ecosystem level (Orlikowski & Gash, 1994; Cornelissen & Werner, 2014) and demonstrates that incongruence does not only obstruct collaboration but may also foster cre-ativity and innovation (Spieth et al., 2021; Thomas et al., 2022). It highlights the managerial need to balance alignment with constructive contestation when guiding ecosystem develop-ment.

The third paper, How companies move to circularity: Adjusting external collaboration and internal reorganizing (Bähr & Fliaster, under review), investigates how established firms in the plastics industry transform towards the circular economy. Based on interviews and doc-ument analysis, it shows that companies must reorganize both permanent and temporary structures as well as intra-organizational processes to overcome inertia (Assmann et al., 2023; Bocken & Geradts, 2020). At the same time, they adapt external collaborations by revising partner choices, reshaping dyadic ties, integrating new actors, and consolidating networks (Aarikka-Stenroos et al., 2022; Gebhardt et al., 2022). The study reveals interde-pendencies between internal and external changes, for example, when structural redesign enables long-term CE projects such as chemical recycling (Argyres et al., 2020). It concludes that CE transformation is multifaceted and requires firms to orchestrate organizational and relational changes simultaneously across incremental and radical innovations (Crossan & Apaydin, 2010).

The fourth paper, Customer roles in digital business ecosystems: Different forms of customer contribution in value creation (Bähr, 2023), develops a typology of how customers contrib-ute resources to value creation in digital ecosystems. Building on a diverse case approach, it identifies a two-dimensional framework distinguishing between active and passive contribu-tions as well as between types of resources such as time, skills, physical assets, and data. The framework results in eight customer roles ranging from content creators to data generators. The paper shows that customer contributions are heterogeneous and dynamic and that cus-tomer involvement may entail risks of co-destruction (Danatzis et al., 2022). It advances ecosystem theory by systematically classifying customer roles and by blurring traditional producer–consumer boundaries (Nambisan & Baron, 2009; Rayna & Striukova, 2021). It provides managerial guidance on how to strategically engage customers as co-creators while mitigating risks.

The fifth paper, Implementation of smart services in ecosystems (Laut & Bähr, 2022), inves-tigates how firms implement smart services and how ecosystem characteristics shape this process. The comparative case study identifies eight ecosystem roles such as Digital Enabler, Service Extender, or Ecosystem Extender (Iansiti & Levien, 2004; Lingens et al., 2021), each associated with specific potentials and risks. It also shows that the success of smart service implementation depends on whether firms adopt incremental, radical, or disruptive ap-proaches and on whether they rely on coordination- or cooperation-oriented strategies. The study contributes to theory by linking ecosystem roles and evolutionary stages (Adner, 2017; Jacobides et al., 2018) with smart service adoption and highlights that implementation strat-egies cannot be understood at the firm level alone. It emphasizes the managerial need to se-lect appropriate roles and collaborations to overcome barriers in digital innovation.

The epilogue integrates the results of all five papers into a broader discussion. It demon-strates that successful digital and sustainable innovation depends on the interplay of cogni-tive frames, organizational transformation, and ecosystem dynamics.
With regard to content, the dissertation contributes to research on digital sustainability and CE-oriented innovation by showing that sustainability outcomes depend on the adoption of twofold frames (George et al., 2021) and by emphasizing the interdependencies between internal reorganization and external collaboration (Assmann et al., 2023; Aarikka-Stenroos et al., 2022).
Regarding perception, the dissertation demonstrates that technological frames not only shape business model innovation but also influence ecosystem emergence, and that frame incon-gruence may stimulate creativity and innovation (Spieth et al., 2021; Lundberg et al., 2022).
In relation to context, the dissertation advances ecosystem research by developing a typology of customer roles (Nambisan & Baron, 2009; Rayna & Striukova, 2021) and by linking eco-system roles and stages to smart service implementation (Adner, 2017; Jacobides et al., 2018). Overall, the dissertation concludes that the mastery of twin transitions requires firms to align cognitive, organizational, and collaborative processes and suggests future research avenues on CE transformation, customer co-creation and co-destruction, and the integration of digital and sustainable innovation.