Investigating the similarity between collaboration systems and digital ecosystems

Digital ecosystem is a concept emerged from the natural existence of business ecosystem, which in turn is taken from the concept of biological ecological systems. In this paper we aim to review the literature in the field of digital ecosystem and investigate models that support the claim that collaboration systems and social media networks, to certain extent, could be considered as digital ecosystem. For this investigation we undertake a systematic mapping study to present a wide review of primary studies on digital ecosystems, collaboration systems, and social media networks. The systematic mapping is a research methodology that gives a visual summary of the results obtained from a systematic research process. This paper mapped what is currently known about digital ecosystem. The work presented in this paper aims at investigating the similarity between collaboration systems and digital ecosystems and guide efforts for future research intended to model collaboration system as a digital ecosystem. Finally, we present our own model of a collaboration system working as a digital ecosystem based on the knowledge obtained from our investigation.