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Modern firms increasingly rely on external digital ecosystems to access infrastructure, artificial intelligence, data, and analytical capabilities that are difficult to build entirely in house. Cloud platforms, AI vendors, and data intermediaries now support core business operations rather than peripheral technical functions. This shift has expanded firm capabilities, but it has also created new forms of dependence. The central problem addressed in this article is that digital ecosystem dependence is often governed through fragmented IT, procurement, compliance, and legal processes. These arrangements can manage service delivery and contractual performance, but they are less suited to strategic vulnerabilities such as lock-in, opacity, bargaining asymmetry, data control loss, and exit difficulty. As a result, firms may become operationally efficient while becoming strategically constrained. The objective of this article is to develop a Digital Ecosystem Governance Framework for firms that depend on cloud platforms, AI vendors, and data intermediaries. The framework identifies the distinct dependence risks associated with each ecosystem partner type and integrates them into a unified governance logic. It treats dependence as a strategic management issue rather than a narrow technology sourcing problem. The proposed framework shows that effective governance of digital ecosystem dependence requires three interrelated capabilities: dependency risk assessment, protective governance mechanisms, and strategic governance oversight. Firms need contractual safeguards, technical portability, internal capability building, vendor diversification, data control mechanisms, and board-level visibility over dependence thresholds. The article contributes a governance-oriented perspective on how firms can use external digital ecosystems without becoming strategically captured by them.

Firms increasingly manage portfolios of digital channels that include direct-to-consumer storefronts, third-party marketplaces, social commerce environments, and digitally enabled partner channels. Each channel provides different opportunities for reach, margin capture, customer engagement, and data access. Yet each also introduces different governance demands because the firm does not exercise equal control across all digital routes to market.The central problem addressed in this article is that many firms expand their digital channel presence faster than they develop governance systems capable of coordinating these channels. As a result, channel conflict, inconsistent pricing, fragmented customer data, brand dilution, and misaligned partner incentives become recurring managerial problems. These issues are especially acute when channels simultaneously cooperate and compete for customers, revenue, information, and strategic attention.The objective of this article is to develop the Digital Channel Governance Framework as a conceptual tool for managing diverse digital channels in a coordinated manner. The framework is designed for firms operating across direct-to-consumer, marketplace, social commerce, and partner channels. It treats digital channel management not as a collection of separate tactical decisions but as an integrated governance problem.The framework shows that effective digital channel governance requires balancing channel-specific autonomy with portfolio-level alignment. It defines governance requirements for direct-to-consumer, marketplace, social commerce, and partner channels, and it proposes mechanisms for pricing consistency, data integration, brand control, incentive alignment, and conflict resolution. The contribution is a practical and conceptual framework for moving from siloed digital channel management toward integrated channel portfolio governance.