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Transforming B2B platforms through interconnected digital twins: Enhancing situation awareness for decision-making

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  • Schink, Alexander
  • Gutmann, Tobias
  • Brenk, Sebastian

Abstract

Business-to-business (B2B) platforms hold transformative potential for manufacturing by enabling firms to collaborate, share data, and coordinate decisions across interconnected cyber-physical networks. However, many firms struggle to fully leverage these platforms due to bounded rationality, as decision-makers face difficulties in processing fragmented, heterogeneous, and real-time data streams. Interconnected Digital Twins (IDTs) offer a promising technological response to this challenge. By integrating data from multiple sources and simulating dynamic manufacturing processes across organizational boundaries, IDTs create shared, real-time representations of operations that support decision-making in complex B2B ecosystems. Grounded in Endsley's Situation Awareness Theory, this study examines how IDTs support perception, comprehension, and projection in cross-organizational decision-making. We conducted an exploratory qualitative case study of a leading automotive manufacturer, drawing on ethnographic access to its IDT implementation. Our findings show that IDTs enhance situation awareness and support cross-organizational decision-making by consolidating fragmented data and reducing cognitive overload through simulation. The study contributes to B2B platform ecosystem research by identifying IDTs as a technological enabler of digital transformation and demonstrating their role in enhancing situation awareness in industrial ecosystems.

Suggested Citation

  • Schink, Alexander & Gutmann, Tobias & Brenk, Sebastian, 2026. "Transforming B2B platforms through interconnected digital twins: Enhancing situation awareness for decision-making," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:techno:v:149:y:2026:i:c:s0166497225002007
    DOI: 10.1016/j.technovation.2025.103368
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