Abstract
This study examines how organizations strategically leverage spatial affordances as a non-contractual governance mechanism to orchestrate interdependencies and enable value co-creation in sport event ecosystems. While ecosystem research has largely emphasized institutional arrangements, platform architecture, and formal governance, less attention has been paid to space as a strategic resource shaping collaboration. Drawing on a qualitative single-case study of the Taiwan Rice Heaven Tianzhong Marathon, we combine field observations, in-depth interviews, and document analysis to develop a framework of physical, social, informational, and digital spatial affordances. Our findings reveal how spatial configurations facilitate task, resource, and positional interdependencies among heterogeneous ecosystem actors, ultimately generating multi-dimensional value co-creation outcomes. By theorizing “space as strategy,” this study advances ecosystem governance scholarship and offers a novel affordance-based explanation of how collaborative value emerges in temporally concentrated event settings.