In recent years, some leading companies in China have been dedicated to building a domestic digital innovation ecosystem, striving to overcome the risks of decoupling and disconnection. Although they have made a series of breakthroughs in key technologies, they still face significant challenges in building an independent and leading digital innovation ecosystem. There are considerable gaps in technology strength, market space, and rules and standards compared with the powerful digital innovation ecosystems represented by international technology giants such as NVIDIA, Google, and Microsoft. These leading companies are at the core of the digital innovation ecosystem, and their growth process is closely related to the development of the digital innovation ecosystem. By focusing on international technology giants, exploring and revealing the formation process and micro-mechanisms of their digital innovation ecosystem leaders, it is of great significance for developing and strengthening domestic digital enterprises and building a domestic digital innovation ecosystem.
The existing literature has systematically analyzed various roles in the ecosystem, including those of leaders (or coordinators) and complementors. Despite significant progress in related research, most of these studies assume that the role of ecosystem leaders remains unchanged. In reality, most digital innovation ecosystem leaders undergo complex growth processes before becoming core leaders. However, there is still a lack of theoretical elucidation on the formation process and micro-mechanisms of ecosystem leaders.
Given the above theoretical background and practical context, this paper explores the role formation process and micro-mechanisms of digital innovation ecosystem leaders from a co-evolution perspective. The aim of this paper is to address three key questions: How can digital enterprises become digital innovation ecosystem leaders? How do collaborative mechanisms for architecture design and context-driven innovation drive organizational role transitions? What are the insights for building a domestically led digital innovation ecosystem for Chinese digital enterprises facing ecological construction challenges? Specifically, using NVIDIA as a case study, this paper summarizes and refines general rules for the formation of the digital innovation ecosystem leader role according to its 1993-2023 development history in the digital innovation ecosystem, and further analyzes the collaborative mechanisms for architecture design and scenario-driven innovation.
Firstly, the paper conducts theoretical analysis based on longitudinal case studies. Secondly, it integrates patent technology network analysis into the case study, using quantitative analysis to support the findings of the case study to ensure the rigor and scientificity of the research. Thirdly, the paper incorporates event analysis into the case study approach by conducting a detailed analysis of the development process of the case object to identify 125 key events. It is found that (1) in the following and catching-up stage, through organizational focus strategy and the introduction of self-developed chip architecture designs, NVIDIA deepened external cooperation and linked with industry giants to support the enterprise to become an industry explorer; (2) in the catching-up and surpassing stage, it focused on the forward-looking layout of the industry and tested the potential market to realize the role transition towards the leader of the industry chain through organizational expansion strategy and the open architecture design of the general industry structure; (3) in the leading stage, it has been striving to meet the demands of ecosystem partners and autonomously defines markets through the organizational ecological strategy and ecological architecture design for AI so as to support the enterprise to become leader in the digital innovation ecosystem.
The digital innovation ecosystem centered around ecosystem leaders is accelerating its formation and forming competitive barriers, but existing research has not thoroughly explored the process and mechanism of how leaders emerge in the digital innovation ecosystem. This paper proposes a co-evolution model of "environmental perception-system transformation-role transition" to explore how NVIDIA, from 1993 to 2023, progressed from an explorer in the chip market, surpassed competitors to become an industry leader, and ultimately transformed into a leader in the digital innovation ecosystem, guiding both technological advancements and market trends. This study deepens the theoretical research on the role formation of the digital innovation ecosystem, and provides implications for promoting the construction of a domestic-led digital innovation ecosystem.