Journal of Sustainable Marketing

Conceptual Foundations

2.1.3 Digital ecosystems as the locus of responsibility

A digital ecosystem perspective relocates CSR from a firm-level attribute to an interdependent configuration shaped by platform owners, complementors, service layers, and information flows (Schreieck et al., 2016). In such settings, responsibility is enacted through governance because platform owners define participation conditions and distribute agency through rules, access regimes, and technical interfaces (Ghazawneh & Henfridsson, 2012; Costabile, 2024). Repairability is therefore not only a design feature of products but also a governed capability that depends on which repair resources are exposed, to whom, and under what constraints (Ghazawneh & Henfridsson, 2012; Boniface et al., 2023). The next section formalizes this governance logic using the boundary resources lens to explain how repairability becomes enabled or foreclosed through documentation, interfaces, and access policies (Ghazawneh & Henfridsson, 2012; Schreieck et al., 2016).

Source : Author's own illustration

Figure 1 maps the conceptual architecture that connects the foundational constructs developed in this section to the framework, typology, and propositions that follow. The three foundations, namely CSR in the digital era, R2R as responsibility infrastructure, and digital ecosystems as the locus of responsibility, converge on repairability as a governed CSR capability. This capability is then formalized through four infrastructural layers, differentiated by ecosystem strategy through the commitment–openness typology, and linked to legitimacy dynamics through proposition-level mechanisms.

Governing repairability and producing legitimacy in platform ecosystems

Methodological positioning: the composite vignette as a theory-building device

This manuscript advances a conceptual argument supported by a composite vignette. The vignette is used as a theory-building device to crystallize a recurring configuration in AI-mediated repair journeys: how access to repair resources, diagnostic mediation, governance restrictions, and community scrutiny combine to shape whether repairability is experienced as empowerment or as controlled responsibility (Bain, 2023; Tremblay et al., 2022). In this capacity, the vignette offers a concise, credible scenario that highlights the tensions posited by the manuscript and establishes the subsequent framework, typology, and propositions within a coherent repair sequence (Skilling & Stylianides, 2019).

The smartphone was selected as the vignette's focal product on the basis of four criteria. First, infrastructural completeness: smartphones are among the few consumer durables where all four layers of the proposed framework are simultaneously observable and well-documented, encompassing self-repair programs and parts catalogs at the access layer, AI-enabled diagnostics at the intelligence layer, software locks and parts pairing at the governance layer, and active repair forums and teardown channels at the community layer. Second, public salience: the smartphone repair domain has served as a focal point of R2R activism, legislative deliberation, and sustained media attention, rendering it a context where legitimacy dynamics are actively contested and

empirically traceable (Recker et al., 2024; Boniface et al., 2023). Third, software-hardware entanglement: smartphones exemplify the governance tensions that arise when repairability depends on permission structures embedded in software rather than on physical feasibility alone, which is central to the manuscript's argument about repairability as a governed capability (Abrol, 2024). Fourth, transferability: while the vignette is grounded in smartphone repair, the infrastructural layers and governance mechanisms it illustrates, including diagnostic mediation, parts authentication, and community verification, recur across other software-defined durable goods categories such as household appliances, automotive systems, and agricultural equipment, supporting the framework's applicability beyond the focal case (Saidani et al., 2023). These criteria guided selection toward a product category where the theoretical mechanisms are most densely observable, rather than toward a category chosen for convenience or familiarity.

To preserve analytical integrity, the vignette is regarded as a regulated conceptual simplification rather than as proof of prevalence or causal relationships (Eifler & Petzold, 2019). It is written for realism and recognizability, but the manuscript does not claim behavioral prediction or generalization from the vignette itself. Its contribution is proportional: it supports mechanism articulation and conceptual clarity by showing which governance choices make repairability actionable, which make it contestable, and how legitimacy is stabilized or disrupted in auditable digital arenas (Skilling & Stylianides, 2019).

Composite vignette

Digital service journeys increasingly enact repairability across consumer durables, combining self-repair documentation, community infrastructures, and AI-enabled diagnostics. Consider a composite but recognizable scenario involving a software-defined consumer device: a consumer’s smartphone begins to shut down unexpectedly after a battery health warning appears. Rather than visiting a repair shop immediately, the consumer enters the brand’s support ecosystem through an official app and is routed into a guided troubleshooting pathway. The interface requests permission to access device diagnostics, then translates sensor and usage data into a structured diagnosis: battery degradation is flagged, a replacement is recommended, and a set of safe next steps is presented. The journey is set up to be empowering, with clear steps and a focus on non-experts. However, it is also a governance sequence in which the platform decides what counts as a legitimate repair and what risks require limits (Sandez et al., 2023; Li et al., 2024).

The customer is given three official ways to get their device fixed: a self-repair kit, an appointment with an authorized service partner, or the option to send it in. Clicking the self-repair option reveals the access layer in practice: parts pricing, tool availability, and documentation format determine whether repairability is experienced as a realistic capability or as a nominal right. The consumer downloads an official guide and compares it to community-produced repair instructions circulating on repair forums and video platforms. These community infrastructures operate simultaneously as skill-building ecosystems and as auditing arenas: they translate repair from a private inconvenience into a civic sustainability practice, while also generating comparative judgments about whether the brand’s repairability claims are materially supported (Kaczmarek, 2021; Kalantidou & Brennan, 2024).

The consumer chooses an independent repair shop instead of the authorized pathway, motivated by cost, convenience, or a preference for local repair cultures. The repair succeeds physically; the battery is replaced, but a friction point emerges during calibration. The device issues a warning that the battery cannot be verified, a feature is disabled, or a service message persists. The repair shop explains that the component is functionally compatible but not cryptographically recognized due to parts pairing, authentication routines, or a required calibration step that is only available through proprietary diagnostic access. At this moment, repairability shifts from physical feasibility to permission-based feasibility: the product can be repaired, but the ecosystem decides whether the repair is legitimized and whether full functionality is restored (Recker et al., 2024; Boniface et al., 2023). The consumer faces the fundamental governance dilemma: controls rationalized as safety, integrity, or liability management simultaneously function as gatekeeping mechanisms that dictate who is permitted to perform repairs and under what circumstances (Abrol, 2024).

The episode moves quickly from individual experience to public verification. Searching the warning message, the consumer uncovers discussions that document similar frictions, compare them across models, and frame them through the discourse of R2R. In parallel, content creators and technical influencers dismantle devices on camera, test parts and tools, and demonstrate where repairs are blocked, degraded, or allowed. Their demonstrations do not merely inform; they function as third-party validation or falsification infrastructures that render claims about repairability auditable at scale. As the evidence circulates, which includes screenshots, teardown videos, and policy excerpts, stakeholders cluster around contested topics, accusations of repairwashing intensify, and the brand’s sustainability narrative becomes a public performance that must withstand scrutiny (Blazkova et al., 2023; Salimi et al., 2025; Zhang et al., 2025; Yang & Chuenterawong, 2025).

The brand responds within the same hyperconnected arena. It may update support pages, clarify safety rationales, announce expanded parts availability, or alter software behavior in a patch. Yet credibility repair is strategy-dependent: responses perceived as deflective or controlling can prolong backlash, whereas actions that increase transparency, expand legitimate repair options, and align governance choices with responsibility claims are more likely to stabilize legitimacy (Haigh & Brubaker, 2010; Len-Ríos et al., 2015). In this composite sequence, repairability is revealed not as a static product attribute but as an ecosystem capability: it is enacted through access infrastructures (parts, tools, documentation), intelligence infrastructures (AI diagnostics and guided repair), governance infrastructures (locks, pairing, diagnostic permissions), and community infrastructures (co-produced knowledge, verification, and contestation). The vignette therefore crystallizes the manuscript’s central claim: sustainable branding via repairability becomes credible only when enabling infrastructures and permission structures align with responsibility narratives under conditions of continuous public audit.

Core framework: Repairability as a CSR capability in AI-mediated ecosystems

This section formalizes repairability as a CSR capability by specifying four infrastructural layers that jointly shape whether repair is practically enabled or strategically constrained in AI-mediated ecosystems (Boniface et al., 2023; Recker et al., 2024). The framework, illustrated in Figure 2, shows how legitimacy is strengthened when these layers align with sustainability claims and weakened when governance choices produce visible friction, opacity, or enclosure (Blazkova et al., 2023; Salimi et al., 2025).

2.5.4 Community layer: co-production and scrutiny

The community layer captures repair as co-produced and publicly auditable. Repair cultures and place-based repair practices contribute to the circulation of repair knowledge, the development of practical skills, and the reframing of repair as a sustainability practice (Kaczmarek, 2021; Kalantidou & Brennan, 2024). Stakeholder engagement research indicates that participation and learning dynamics strengthen sustainable value creation, suggesting that community involvement can be capability-building as well as reputational (Alshukri et al., 2024). Communities also provide scrutiny: they compare claims to lived experience, expose friction points, and can trigger legitimacy spillovers across platforms, both positive and negative (Kaczmarek, 2021; Roy & Sen, 2023). This scrutiny is increasingly mediated by technical influencers and content creators who act as legitimacy brokers, dismantling devices to publicly verify claims before wider audiences (Zhang et al., 2025; Yang & Chuenterawong, 2025).

Source : Author's own illustration

Typology: repairability commitment × ecosystem openness

To connect repairability-as-CSR capability to ecosystem strategy, this manuscript proposes a 2×2 typology that crosses repairability commitment with ecosystem openness. The typology is motivated by platform ecosystem research showing that openness and control reshape trust, quality, innovation, and governance volatility (Wessel et al., 2017). It is also motivated by CSR scholarship demonstrating that stakeholders differentiate between substantive responsibility and symbolic CSR, with decoupling dynamics increasing perceived greenwashing and backlash risks (Bothello et al., 2023; Donia & Tetrault Sirsly, 2016; Wessel et al., 2017). These dynamics are especially salient for repairability because commitments are readily verifiable through parts access, documentation, diagnostic access, and repair permissions that can be tested and shared (Saidani et al., 2023).

Figure 3 illustrates the typology. Accordingly, the predicted branding outcome is that the legitimacy is strongest when commitment is substantive and constraints are transparently justified.

Quadrant 1: Capability-led legitimacy (high commitment, high openness). Firms make repairability materially actionable while enabling broad participation across repair communities and independent service ecosystems. Openness expands complementary repair knowledge and services, which can increase empowerment and innovation, but also increases exposure because claims are tested publicly (Donia & Tetrault Sirsly, 2016; Wessel et al., 2017). Governance remains necessary because openness without safeguards can reduce average quality and destabilize trust (Wessel et al., 2017; Jin et al., 2023).

Quadrant 2: Controlled responsibility (high commitment, low openness). Firms invest in repairability but retain strong control over the repair ecosystem through approved channels and restricted participation. Control can stabilize quality and limit uncertainty, yet it may narrow innovation and create perceptions of gatekeeping if constraints resemble enclosure (Jin et al., 2023). Legitimacy depends on whether control is experienced as safety and quality governance or as strategic restriction, especially in hyperconnected contexts where friction points can become reputational flashpoints (Bothello et al., 2023; Wessel et al., 2017).

Quadrant 3: Delegated repairability (low commitment, high openness). Firms rely on openness and third-party ecosystems to carry repair outcomes without investing strongly in repair infrastructures. Openness can partially compensate through ecosystem improvisation, but it externalizes responsibility onto consumers who must navigate uneven quality and risk (Jin et al., 2023; Saidani et al., 2023). In CSR terms, weak commitment increases skepticism if firms benefit from repair narratives while not providing enabling infrastructures (Donia & Tetrault Sirsly, 2016; Wessel et al., 2017).

Quadrant 4: Extractive enclosure (low commitment, low openness). Firms neither invest in repairability infrastructures nor allow open ecosystem participation, making repair difficult and alternatives constrained. Under such conditions, symbolic CSR is especially likely to trigger perceived greenwashing because stakeholders observe a disconnect between claims and practice (Bothello et al., 2023; Wessel et al., 2017). Evidence also suggests that decoupling can be associated with severe downstream risks, including credibility collapse and broader misconduct signals in some contexts (Saeed et al., 2025; Khanchel et al., 2023).

Source : Author’s own illustration

Propositions and mechanisms: verification, accusation, and credibility repair in digital CSR

Digital publics can turn CSR into an auditing arena where claims are tested, contested, and verified. Research on greenwashing debates on social media shows that accusations and counterclaims organize around identifiable stakeholder clusters and recurring topics, enabling rapid contestation and comparative evaluation (Blazkova et al., 2023; Salimi et al., 2025). These dynamics are amplified by visibility conditions that enable activism while also increasing escalation risks, including surveillance pressures that shape how contestation unfolds (Uldam, 2017).

Third-party validation depends on platform affordances that shape credibility assessment. Interactive elements like comments and engagement interfaces can serve as credibility infrastructure, allowing the public to express agreement, contest assertions, and evaluate trustworthiness through observable indicators (Liao & Mak, 2019; Go & Bortree, 2017). When affordances are constrained, stakeholders may interpret reduced interaction as lowered transparency, which can intensify suspicion in contexts where greenwashing accusations are salient (Liao & Mak, 2019; Salimi et al., 2025).

Backlash dynamics are also strategy-dependent. Image restoration research shows that post-crisis responses vary in how they affect perceived CSR, organization–public relationships, and source credibility, with some approaches improving evaluations and others failing in social media contexts (Haigh & Brubaker, 2010; Len-Ríos et al., 2015). In addition, experimental work on debunking CSR-washing indicates that public correction can reverse the persuasive effects of misleading CSR claims and produce measurable reputational penalties (Brugman et al., 2024). These mechanisms are consistent with influencer-focused research suggesting that credibility brokers can amplify CSR legitimacy but also intensify scrutiny and accelerate backlash diffusion when inconsistencies are highlighted (Zhang et al., 2025; Yang & Chuenterawong, 2025).

An additional mechanism concerns algorithmic opacity within the intelligence layer. When AI-mediated diagnostics lack interpretable reasoning, the gap between system recommendations and stakeholder understanding creates a structural impediment to substantive CSR. Unlike governance-layer restrictions, which are frequently visible and documentable through observable friction points such as parts pairing warnings or persistent service messages, opacity in diagnostic logic is considerably harder to detect and contest. This asymmetry renders algorithmic opacity a less conspicuous but potentially more corrosive threat to the credibility of repairability claims, because stakeholders may not recognize the barrier until comparative community evidence accumulates. Proposition P8 formalizes this mechanism.

Table 1 consolidates the core mechanisms and their proposition-level implications, linking platform-mediated verification, escalation, and credibility repair to auditable repairability-based CSR claims (Blazkova et al., 2023; Salimi et al., 2025).

Theoretical implications

The manuscript contributes to CSR and branding scholarship by treating responsibility as both performative and infrastructural in digital ecosystems. First, it reinforces that CSR is not only communicated but also encountered and evaluated in platform-mediated settings that enable contestation, recirculation, and peer validation. This shifts CSR from disclosure to ongoing public performance, where claims become auditable artifacts rather than stable corporate narratives (Blazkova et al., 2023; Salimi et al., 2025). Second, the manuscript extends ecosystem governance theory into CSR by conceptualizing repairability as an outcome of boundary-resource design. Manuals, documentation, diagnostic interfaces, and access policies serve as governance tools that balance resource allocation and security. Ecosystems allow stakeholders to shape and share responsibility (Ghazawneh & Henfridsson, 2012). Third, the framework clarifies how AI can function as a governance-relevant capability, not merely an efficiency tool. AI-driven diagnostics can redistribute agency and reshape accountability boundaries, which is relevant for CSR because it affects whether empowerment claims are experienced as enabling support or as constrained, opaque control (Mayer et al., 2025; Li et al., 2024). The identification of algorithmic opacity as a specific barrier to substantive CSR extends this insight by demonstrating that opacity does not merely erode trust in individual interactions but structurally prevents the public verification that stabilizes legitimacy at the community layer. Finally, the 2×2 typology integrates platform openness-control trade-offs with CSR's substantive-symbolic distinctions, linking ecosystem strategy to legitimacy dynamics. It shows why openness can increase innovation but also volatility and scrutiny, and why symbolic responsibility becomes especially fragile when restrictions are easily documented and shared in digital publics (Wessel et al., 2017; Bothello et al., 2023). These implications collectively recontextualize repairability as a tangible locus where corporate social responsibility (CSR), governance, and branding intersect, and where legitimacy is attained through the congruence of infrastructure and narrative, rather than narrative in isolation (Donia & Tetrault Sirsly, 2016; Bothello et al., 2023). The integration of the legislative dimension further demonstrates that repairability is not governed solely by corporate strategy but is increasingly shaped by regulatory mandates that establish baseline access conditions, creating a new evaluative arena where the gap between compliance and substantive enablement becomes itself a locus of legitimacy assessment.

Managerial implications

For managers, the results translate into a clear principle: credibility in sustainable branding depends on building repairability infrastructures that can withstand public verification. At the access layer, this principle means prioritizing usable documentation, transparent pricing, and predictable parts availability, because these are the conditions that make repair a lived consumer capacity rather than a rhetorical right (Sandez et al., 2023; Hidalgo-Crespo & Maranzana, 2025). At the intelligence layer, AI-enabled guidance should be designed with explicit boundaries, including safety constraints, responsibility allocation, and understandable explanations of recommendations, so that guided repair does not become an accountability gap or a perceived enclosure of user agency (Li et al., 2024; Mayer et al., 2025). At the governance layer, managers should treat software locks, parts pairing, and diagnostic data access as CSR-relevant design choices. When these controls are non-negotiable, firms should transparently justify them and ensure they do not undermine repair claims in practice, because restrictive governance can quickly trigger suspicion and backlash when it appears to contradict sustainability narratives (Recker et al., 2024; Boniface et al., 2023; Salimi et al., 2025).

To support practical application, Table 2 offers a diagnostic checklist that enables managers to evaluate whether specific governance controls serve legitimate safety functions or risk being perceived and contested as market gatekeeping. The checklist operationalizes the governance layer by translating the safety-versus-enclosure distinction into assessable criteria that can be applied to individual control points within a repair ecosystem. Controls that consistently satisfy the safety governance indicators are more likely to withstand public scrutiny and align with substantive CSR. Controls that cluster on the gatekeeping side signal elevated repairwashing risk and should prompt either redesign or, at minimum, transparent and evidence-based justification. The diagnostic value of the checklist lies in its capacity to surface misalignments before they become focal points for community contestation, allowing managers to anticipate rather than react to legitimacy challenges.

Companies should see repair communities as partners in building skills and checking for legitimacy at the community level. Investing in structured engagement and allowing for third-party validation can enhance trust, but such success is contingent upon firms being ready for scrutiny and having infrastructures that support their claims (Kaczmarek, 2021; Liao & Mak, 2019). The most actionable warning is to avoid high-visibility responsibility claims that are not supported by governance-compatible repair realities, because debunking and accusation dynamics produce measurable reputational penalties, and negative discourse can dominate public interpretation (Brugman et al., 2024; Blazkova et al., 2023).

The rapidly crystallizing legislative landscape further reconfigures the managerial calculus. As the ESPR and the Right to Repair Directive establish mandatory repairability thresholds, including post-warranty repair obligations, spare parts availability requirements, and pricing transparency, regulatory compliance becomes a baseline expectation rather than a source of competitive differentiation. Managers should therefore treat these regulatory floors as starting points and deploy the framework developed here to identify where substantive investment in access, intelligence, and community layers can build credibility that exceeds minimum compliance. This distinction matters because stakeholders in hyperconnected markets evaluate not only whether firms satisfy legal obligations but whether their repair infrastructures genuinely enable consumer agency, and the gap between formal compliance and substantive enablement is precisely where repairwashing accusations gain traction.

Limitations and future research

The manuscript’s primary limitation is methodological by design. The composite vignette approach supports conceptual clarification and mechanism articulation, but it does not offer causal identification or population-level generalization (Bain, 2023; Tremblay et al., 2022). This limitation is mitigated by clarifying the vignette's purpose, which is to theorize recurring ecosystem configurations rather than to assert statistical claims regarding effect sizes or prevalence (Eifler & Petzold, 2019; Skilling & Stylianides, 2019). Future research can build an empirical agenda in four directions. First, comparative ecosystem studies can examine how various configurations of boundary resources influence repair outcomes and stakeholder legitimacy assessments across sectors such as consumer electronics, appliances, and automotive services (Ghazawneh & Henfridsson, 2012; Boniface et al., 2023). Second, consumer research can examine how AI-mediated diagnostics influence perceived agency, trust, and blame attribution when repairs succeed or fail, including the conditions under which guidance is interpreted as empowerment versus control (Li et al., 2024; Mayer et al., 2025). Third, digital methods can track the dynamics of accusations and verifications surrounding repairability claims in real time, such as who is driving scrutiny, how evidence is shared, and when backlash grows (Blazkova et al., 2023; Salimi et al., 2025). Fourth, governance- and law-oriented research can examine how intellectual property claims, technological protection measures, and diagnostic data access regimes interact with emerging R2R policy instruments and how these legal architectures shape the practical availability of repair as a consumer right (Abrol, 2024; Boniface et al., 2023). In particular, as EU Member States transpose the Right to Repair Directive into national law by July 2026, comparative studies could examine whether and how implementation translates into substantive changes in access layer conditions across jurisdictions and whether regulatory compliance reduces or merely redirects repairwashing risk toward less regulated dimensions of the repair ecosystem.

Repairability should be treated as a pillar of sustainable branding because it makes sustainability credible at the point where responsibility becomes materially testable. In digital ecosystems, stakeholders do not evaluate responsibility only through stated commitments; they evaluate it through whether the infrastructure of repair is real, usable, and governed in ways that enable agency rather than simulate it (Ghazawneh & Henfridsson, 2012; Sandez et al., 2023). When repairability is supported through transparent access, intelligible AI guidance, and governance choices that do not strategically foreclose legitimate repair, it transforms sustainability from narrative into capability and legitimacy from aspiration into earned trust (Li et al., 2024; Recker et al., 2024; Bothello et al., 2023). On the other hand, when repairability is considered a responsibility but is limited by enclosure mechanisms that communities can easily document and challenge, it increases the risk of greenwashing and speeds up backlash in digital publics that can be audited (Blazkova et al., 2023; Salimi et al., 2025). Sustainable branding, therefore, is increasingly decided not by the elegance of CSR storytelling but by the durability of the infrastructures that make responsible consumption possible.