Abstract

As digital industrial platforms (DIPs) take centre stage in industrial digital transformation, the challenge of orchestrating ecosystems across fragmented and heterogeneous scenarios has become increasingly pressing. Yet, research offers limited insight into how DIPs navigate cross-scenario complexity in developing scalable ecosystems through boundary-spanning capabilities. Drawing on boundary spanning theory, this study presents an interpretive case of Alpha, a start-up industrial platform in China operating across diverse vertical and horizontal domains. We identify four boundary dimensions—syntactic, semantic, pragmatic, and legitimating—that shape the challenges DIPs face. In response, we uncover three boundary-spanning capabilities essential for ecosystem growth: scenario permeability, knowledge institutionalization, and rapid transposability. These capabilities are supported by four mechanisms: infrastructural envelopment, catalytic inhabitation, knowledge precipitation, and proactive coalition building. Our findings extend boundary spanning theory into the industrial platform context, highlighting deliberate platform-led orchestration, and contribute actionable insights for designing and scaling ecosystems in the era of Industry 4..

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