Linkage and coordination: Industrial digital transformation from the perspective of innovation ecosystem

The topic of industrial digital transformation (IDT) is garnering prominence in both industry and academia. Current discussions on IDT are most concentrated within specific business disciplines but remain fragmented, lacking a broader systemic perspective that integrates digital technology adopters, collaborative value co-creators, and the regulating external techno-economic environment. This paper explores innovation ecosystem theory to construct a “technology-organization-market” integrated analysis framework, understanding IDT's multi-field linkage and cross-field coordination characteristics. We apply this exploratory framework to the Chinese urban rail transit industry as a case study, analyzing the interlinkages and collaborative dynamics in the digital transformation across various functional areas over the past decade. We observe that notable advancements in technological upgrading, organizational systems, and market performance within the industry, yet potential constraints at the technical field. Moreover, we observe a coordinated effect of chain optimization among different fields. However, a long-term negative impact is observed between technology and organization fields, possibly linked to recent industrial technology development decline.