Organizational Capabilities for Social Media Management: How Restaurant Managers Approach to the Digital Ecosystem

Digital platforms and social media are now widespread and their diffusion enables the development of digital ecosystems where organizations, users and firms’ stakeholders virtually meet, share knowledge, influence each other and co-evolve. In order to effectively manage and exploit digital ecosystems, organizations require to evolve their processes and capabilities. The paper aims are threefold: (1) understanding how restaurant managers perceive and approach the digital ecosystem, (2) investigate how they concretely manage the digital ecosystem, and (3) comprehend what organizational competences are perceived as useful to effectively manage the digital ecosystem. We adopt an explorative approach through a qualitative analysis of 54 companies in the food and beverage service sectors.