A Conceptual Analysis of Emerging 6G Ecosystem

Research on the sixth-generation wireless communication technology (6G) ecosystem has attracted significant attention and captured widespread interest in the past 5 years since 2018. The concept of 6G ecosystem and its related concepts become widely used but have encountered the challenge of ambiguity and misuse due to a lack of rigorous conceptual analysis. To bridge this gap, this paper proposes a novel conceptual analysis framework to explore the components, related concepts, sub-concepts, antecedents, and consequences of 6G ecosystem through a systematic and comprehensive literature review. Our findings reveal a scattered landscape of 70 variant 6G ecosystem concepts from 140 selected papers and emphasize the crucial role of ecosystem-level business innovation for a sustainable 6G ecosystem. Furthermore, this study provides foundational knowledge for stakeholders to strategically navigate this complex ecosystem and make corporate foresight decisions in the forthcoming 6G era, meanwhile offering insights for policymakers to foster collaboration and implement 6G standardization.