Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Daniela Andreini
Cristina Bettinelli
Business Model
Innovation
From Systematic Literature Review to
Future Research Directions
International Series in Advanced Management
Studies
Editor-in-chief
Alberto Pastore, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
Series editors
Giovanni Battista Dagnino, University of Catania, Catania, Italy
Marco Frey, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy
Christian Grönroos, Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland
Michael Haenlein, ESCP Europe, Paris, France
Charles F. Hofacker, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA
Anne Huff, Maynooth University, Maynooth, Ireland
Morten Huse, BI Norwegian Business School, Oslo, Norway
Gennaro Iasevoli, Lumsa University, Rome, Italy
Andrea Moretti, University of Udine, Udine, Italy
Fabio Musso, University of Urbino, Urbino, Italy
Mustafa Ozbilgin, Brunel University London, Uxbridge, UK
Paolo Stampacchia, University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy
Luca Zanderighi, University of Milan, Milan, Italy
Assistant editor
Michela Matarazzo, Marconi University, Rome, Italy
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15195
Daniela Andreini Cristina Bettinelli
•
123
Daniela Andreini Cristina Bettinelli
Department of Management, Department of Management,
Economics and Quantitative Methods Economics and Quantitative Methods
University of Bergamo University of Bergamo
Bergamo Bergamo
Italy Italy
After the dot-com boom in the 2000s, studies on business models grew dramati-
cally. The main research focus was on identifying and describing the elements or
building blocks of business models. Yet the business model concept’s usefulness
was much criticized (e.g., Porter 2001), and many studies acknowledged the
fuzziness of the term and searched for clearer definitions for the concept to be used
properly (e.g., Magretta 2002; Osterwalder et al. 2005; Shafer et al. 2005).
Within the last decade, the business model research has evolved from static
descriptions to a more dynamic approach, focusing on the development and inno-
vation of business models (see, e.g., Chesbrough 2010; Demil and Lecocq 2010;
Teece 2010). This stream of research considers business model innovation (BMI) to
be a critical source of competitive advantage in an increasingly changing environ-
ment (Casadesus-Masanell and Zhu 2013; Amit and Zott 2012) and one of the most
important determinants of firm performance (Chesbrough and Rosenbloom 2002).
Thus, the field of research on business model innovation has grown fast but has
been developed in silos due to the various disciplines interested in the phenomenon.
An unrestricted search of academic publications using the keyword phrase
“business model innovation” produces hundreds of articles. The interest in this
topic can be seen from the several special issues on business models in academic
journals such as Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal (2015), Long Range Planning
(2010, 2013), Industrial Marketing Management (2013), Strategic Organization
(2013), International Journal of Innovation Management (2013), and R&D
Management (2014).
In this context, the authors of this book decided to develop a systematic literature
review in order to identify and integrate the different theoretical perspectives,
analytical levels, and empirical contexts to help us better understand such a com-
plex phenomenon.
It took us two years to develop a systematic literature review of 156 papers on
business model innovation. During this process of analysis, we adopted an
inductive thematic analysis based on an informal ontological classification that
produced 56 key themes. Within each theme, we discuss the thematic patterns,
v
vi Preface
potential inconsistencies and debates, and future directions and opportunities for
research (see Jones et al. 2011).
This book makes a number of contributions. First, we offer a deeper under-
standing of the evolution of research on business model innovation through an
ontological map that identifies the key thematic areas in the literature. Second, we
develop a multilevel model that clarifies the concept of BMI, by identifying its
drivers, contingencies, and outcomes. Third, this review provides clear and specific
directions for future research as well as suggestions about research design, creating
an informative road map for the future.
This book is organized as follows. In the first chapter, we introduce the method-
ology employed to review BMI phenomenon. In particular, in this chapter, we will
define and describe the systematic literature review methodology and its protocols.
Thus, we will provide all the information about the processes we followed to conduct
the ontological and the thematic analysis. As the systematic literature review is a
replicable, scientific, and transparent process, aimed to minimize bias through
extensive searches, in this chapter, we will provide an audit trail of the phases,
strategies, procedures, and decisions we followed to review BMI phenomenon.
In the second chapter, we will disentangle the business model concept and
definition. Since the conceptualization of business model innovation derives
directly from the business model ones, it is important to review and elaborate the
meaning of business model according to different disciplines. In this perspective,
this chapter provides a more unified theoretical conceptualization and framework of
BMs. Accordingly, the reader will find tables and schemes that will help the reading
and the first analysis followed our systematic literature review.
In the third chapter, we will develop the main topic of this book: business model
innovation. We will provide a holistic and integrative review of the current liter-
ature on the dynamics of business model innovation. Thus, this chapter will provide
a deep analysis of the evolution of research on business model innovation, and a
specific examination of the key thematic areas we detected in the literature about
business model innovation. As a result, we will develop an ontological map of the
different thematic areas within the business model innovation research and discuss
the implications for our understanding of business model innovation within each
thematic area.
The fourth and the fifth chapters illustrate a multilevel and a multiperspective
models of BMI, showing how we can delineate different patterns for BMI by levels of
analysis (i.e., individual, team, firm, network, and institutional) and disciplines
(strategic management, organizational studies, marketing, practice-oriented, and
entrepreneurship). This will allow us to summarize and interpret the literature on BMI.
Finally, the sixth chapter will conclude the book with a research agenda that
provides clear and specific directions for future research and also suggestions on
research design to create an informative road map for the future.
References
Amit, R. & Zott, C. (2012). Creating value through business model innovation. MIT Sloan
Management Review, 53, 41–49.
Casadesus-Masanell, R. & Zhu, F. (2013). Business model innovation and competitive imitation:
The case of sponsor-based business models. Strategic Management Journal, 34, 464–482.
Chesbrough, H. (2010). Business model innovation: Opportunities and barriers. Long Range
Planning, 43, 354–363.
Chesbrough, H. & Rosenbloom, R. S. (2002). The role of the business model in capturing value
from innovation: Evidence from Xerox Corporation’s technology spin-off companies.
Industrial and Corporate Change, 11, 529–555.
Demil, B. & Lecocq, X. (2010). Business model evolution: In search of dynamic consistency.
Long Range Planning, 43, 227–246.
Jones, M. V., Coviello, N. & Tang, Y. K. (2011). International entrepreneurship research
(1989–2009): A domain ontology and thematic analysis. Journal of Business Venturing, 26,
632–659.
Magretta, J. (2002). Why business models matter. Harvard Business Review, 80, 86–93.
Osterwalder, A., Pigneur, Y. & Tucci, C. L. (2005). Clarifying business models: Origins, present,
and future of the concept. Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 16,
1–25.
Porter, M. (2001). Strategy and the internet. Harward Business Review, 79, 62–78.
Shafer, S. M., Smith, H. J. & Linder, J. C. (2005). The power of business models. Business
Horizons, 48, 199–207.
Teece, D. J. (2010). Business models, business strategy and innovation. Long Range Planning, 43,
172–194.
Acknowledgements
We would thank all those whose support allowed us to write this book.
First of all, Matteo and Claudio and our wonderful families who with patience
and love support our work everyday.
We heartily thank Teea Palo our co-author on other publications on BMI,
Prof. Shaker Zhara who pushed us to develop our ideas, and the reviewers of the
PDW attending the Conference of the Academy of Management in Vancouver in
2015.
Special thanks to the anonymous reviewers of this book and to Prof. Alberto
Pastore and Prof. Marco Frey for their precious support as editors of the
International Series in Advanced Management Studies (SIMA-Springer).
Last but not least, our colleagues and friends Mara and Giuseppe, with whom we
share the burdens and honors of our job.
Daniela Andreini
Cristina Bettinelli
ix
Contents
xi
xii Contents
Abstract The first chapter of this book introduces the importance of studying
business model innovation (BMI), the methodology we applied to study the subject,
and specific statistics about the literature published in academic and
practice-oriented journals in the last 15 years. Specifically, this chapter offers an
overview of the processes followed for our systematic literature review (SLR) and
the rigorous protocol that includes the three-stage procedure (i.e., planning, exe-
cution, and reporting) suggested by Tranfield et al. (Br J Manag 14:207–222, 2003).
Gathering the most influential pieces on SLRs, this chapter also offers some hints
for conducting a successful SLR and illustrates the benefits associated with doing
so. In addition, this chapter describes the thematic and the informal ontological
classification we adopted to analyze the 156 papers included in our systematic
literature review. Thus, the first section of this chapter defines what is meant by an
SLR. The second section offers an overview of the tasks of an SLR. The other
sections present the process followed for the thematic and ontological analyses that
are central to this work. The final section provides some statistics on the 156 papers
included in our SLR, underlining specific information about the journals that
published the articles, the methodological approaches applied in the papers, the
industries included in the studies, the geographical contexts, and the disciplines that
contributed to the understanding of BMI.
1.1 Introduction
Literature reviews are key elements in every discipline as they provide a summary
of the existing evidence that is needed to inform new academic projects, policy, and
practice. As observed by Tranfield et al. (2003), after World War II, a sharp focus of
attention on the discipline and profession of management has become apparent and
the pace of research has been accelerating accordingly, generating a large volume of
research material. Consequently, literature reviews have emerged as key elements
to foster research in academia, to map existing knowledge production, and to
produce new research questions (Frank and Hatak 2014). More than 10 years ago,
scholars started to notice that literature reviews in the field of management reviews
© Springer International Publishing AG 2017 1
D. Andreini and C. Bettinelli, Business Model Innovation, International Series
in Advanced Management Studies, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-53351-3_1
2 1 Systematic Literature Review
(2) Clarity: A clear representation of the process must be granted so that the
audience can make an audit trail (Tranfield et al. 2003).
(3) Focus: The review must ensure that the research question is linked in a con-
sistent way to the selected evidence that informs such a question (Pittaway et al.
2004).
(4) Unification of research and practitioner communities: the review methods are
organized to inform both academic and policy and practitioner perspectives
(Leseure et al. 2004).
(5) Equality: The review aims at avoiding any distinction in principle between the
type and nature of journals (Pittaway et al. 2004).
(6) Accessibility: The reviews are also disseminated in the form of reports and
searchable databases so they are available outside the specialist and academic
community.
(7) Broad coverage: The use of the above indicated principles and of more and
more sophisticated technologies makes it possible to cover a wide variety of
sources.
(8) Synthesis: The SLR must synthetize, compare and link findings from a number
of research fields and through different research methodologies.
The above principles inspired by the work of Thorpe et al. (2005), paint a picture
of SLRs as able to represent a sound, method-guided, replicable and meaningful
synthesis of previous research. We believe it is important to add a principle that
should guide all types of literature reviews: the overall purpose of an SLR is to
critically analyze research literature and to offer direction for developing its
potential in such a way as to clarify the ways available to advance theoretical
understanding (LePine and King 2010).
Literature reviews like an SLR can be extremely useful when a certain topic or
research field is characterized by studies that are heterogeneous in terms of theo-
retical such as approaches and methods. An SLR can be used to pursue any of
several objectives that include highly ambitious tasks such as theory development,
or less ambitious ones like theory evaluation (i.e., drawing conclusions about the
value of existing conceptualizations), analysis of the state of the art, problem
identification (i.e., identifying problems, weaknesses, contradictions, or debates in a
particular research territory), or analysis of the historical development of ideas and
theories. It is important to note that in the case of SLR, theory development is
usually not the main goal, however, successful SLRs pursue more than one task
(Frank and Hatak 2014).
4 1 Systematic Literature Review
A best practice example in this sense is the paper by Jones et al. (2011) which is
indeed a multi-goal and multifaceted SLR and offers a broad overview of two
decades of international entrepreneurship research. This paper has inspired the
current SLR on BMI and provided an important guide during the development of
this project. Jones et al. (2011) work uses a rigorous review protocol and adopts an
inductive approach to identify different thematic areas that have been developed in
international entrepreneurship between 1989 and 2009. Their SLR uses 323
selected academic published articles and identifies 51 first-order themes (i.e., basic
concepts that reveal the subject matter of each article analyzed), these first-order
themes were then were grouped based on their similarity to second-order themes
(i.e., macro concepts that summarize and group first-order themes based on con-
ceptual similarity) and third-order themes (i.e., higher level thematic areas). This
process led to (1) the creation of thematic maps that allowed the authors to effi-
ciently summarize the concepts that emerged; (2) an ontological analysis1 of each
thematic area that allowed the authors to critically review the papers while main-
taining appropriate standards of parsimony and objectivity; (3) a historical recon-
struction of the development of international entrepreneurship research; (4) the
identification of three types of international entrepreneurship research (‘en-
trepreneurial internationalization’, ‘international comparisons of entrepreneurship’,
and ‘comparative entrepreneurial internationalization’). The process followed by
Jones et al. (2011) made it possible to shed light on the common issues and nature
of international entrepreneurship and on the knowledge structures existing in
published papers. This is an important element in that it fosters the development of
theories within a research domain and the identification of a promising research
agenda (Frank and Hatak 2014). For the reasons above, we have selected the paper
by Jones et al. as our best practice example and aim to reproduce its inductive
ontological approach.
BMI is a concept that generally refers to the search by companies for new business
logics and new ways to create and capture value for their stakeholders, moreover, it
refers to finding new ways to generate profits and define value propositions for
customers, partners, and suppliers (e.g., Amit and Zott 2012; Casadesus-Masanell
and Zhu 2013; Comes and Berniker 2008). BMI describes how firms transform
themselves with regard to where they were before and/or the industry convention of
1
According to the Oxford Dictionary, ontology is “a set of concepts and categories in a subject
area or domain that shows their properties and the relations between them”. Thus, the ontological
analysis consists in the study of “the relations between the concepts and categories in a subject area
or domain” (Oxford Dictionary 2016).
1.2 Why Conduct a Systematic Literature Review of BMI? A Brief … 5
The current SLR differs from previous literature reviews on BMI (Schneider and
Spieth 2013; Foss and Saebi 2017) in two main ways. First, the present review aims
to answer the call for deeper analysis of some aspects of BMI, such as the enablers
for firms developing innovation in an existing business model (BM), the process of
BMI, and the effects of BMI (Zott and Amit 2013: 409). Second, the current review
extends analysis to a wider field of research through the use of a larger set of
keywords related to BMI. The following describes the process of executing the
review and discusses it in detail.
As previously stated, an SLR follows a rigorous method of collecting and
analyzing data. Accordingly, to achieve the aims of developing a deeper under-
standing of BMI, mapping the related themes, and outlining the theoretical
approaches, we developed our research to adhere to the principles of transparency,
clarity, focus, unification of research and practitioner communities, equality,
accessibility, broad coverage, and synthesis (Thorpe et al. 2005; Tranfield et al.
2003).
Moreover, in accordance with recent systematic literature reviews, we followed
the path set by Jones et al. (2011) when conducting an SLR in management studies.
In this way, we enhanced the meta-analysis of collected papers using thematic
analysis (Braun and Clarke 2006), which is an inductive method that permits
investigation and inquiry into both qualitative and quantitative research. Finally, as
suggested by Jones et al. (2011), to synthesize data and contribute to the scientific
knowledge of BMI, we applied an informal ontological classification system
(Chandrasekaran et al. 1999; Jones et al. 2011; Noy and McGuinness 2001; Saab
and Fonseca 2008); the subjective and cultural assumptions of the researchers
involved in this paper influence the categorization of the phenomenon under
consideration.
The thematic analysis in this systematic review did not begin from a theoretical
or a predetermined framework. We have summarized the processes (i.e. planning,
execution, and reporting) of the SLR developed in this book (see Fig. 1.1). This
chapter provides details of the planning and execution phases, while the reporting
phase is the subject of the following chapters.
1.3.1 Planning
The planning phase began with defining the objectives of the SLR. As stated in the
introduction, the review is aimed at understanding the evolution of research on BMI
and analyzing the key thematic areas and their contribution to the knowledge of
BMI.
Thus, we prepared and shared different research proposals with two senior
professors and two peers, experienced both in business model and in systematic
1.3 How We Conducted Our SLR on BMI: Methods 7
Fig. 1.1 Summary of the SLR processes [Authors’ elaboration based on Thorpe et al. (2005)]
literature review methods. In this phase, we received useful feedback about relevant
sourcing, search, selection, and exclusion processes. The experts helped the authors
to determine the typology of sources and the selection process of the papers con-
sidered in this analysis. Employing experts also offered the opportunity to discuss
how to conduct the thematic and the ontological analysis, to guarantee the validity
of our study.
1.3.2 Execution
“business model radicalness” (e.g., Ritala and Sainio 2014) and “business model
change” (e.g., Cavalcante 2014) are commonly used to indicate the introduction of
innovative processes and activities in existing BMs. Since the aim of the systematic
literature review is to gather existing evidence-based research on BMI, regardless of
disciplinary boundaries, language, and location, the current review included multiple
keywords and, therefore, research perspectives. This method also enabled the cap-
ture and understanding of the dynamic nature of the BM in terms of how it relates not
only to innovation but also to newness and radicalness, design, development,
change, transformation, and enhancement. All these terms can refer to innovating
around existing or new BMs and including them helped improve understanding of
the fragmented research field on BMI. As a result, we developed a series of key-
words and exclusion criteria that were built into search strings and entered in the
electronic databases.
This process yielded 1976 citations, of which 1120 were omitted due to repli-
cation. An initial check of the search results revealed that in a number of cases the
elements comprising the strings were not connected to each other. For example, the
“business model” AND “develop*” string search produced a large number of
citations where develop* was used in the abstract but did not refer to BMs.
Therefore, we narrowed the search by using the strings and Boolean operators listed
in Table 1.1.
This process produced 549 citations, of which 151 were omitted due to repli-
cation. We also excluded two papers with anonymous authors, three teaching cases,
three non-English-language papers, and five reports/interviews, to produce a sample
of 385 citations.
Following Thorpe et al. (2005), we read the titles, abstracts, and introductions of
the papers and classified them into three categories: “A” incorporated studies that
were definitely relevant; “B” incorporated studies whose relevance was initially
unclear; and “C” incorporated studies that were not relevant. As shown in Part A of
Appendix 1.1, we followed an interactive process for inclusion and exclusion that
produced a final sample of 1562 Category A papers for thematic analysis.
We conducted data extraction using dual analysis, including descriptive and
interpretative investigations, as shown in Appendix 1.2 (Thorpe et al. 2005;
Tranfield et al. 2003). We recorded general information (i.e., title, authors, publi-
cation details, key words, and abstract) and specific information (i.e., theoretical
perspective, method of analysis, sample, and context of analysis (if any) for each
paper in an Excel file. Then, we evaluated the results of the SLR for evidence of the
confines related to BMI as suggested by Rousseau et al. (2008). We recorded the
definitions and boundaries of the BMI concept as expressed by the authors of each
paper. Finally, we organized the papers chronologically to verify the development
of the phenomenon over time.
2
The period of interest was 2001–2015. Then, we manually added a relevant paper that has been
published in 2017 by Foss and Saebi as their paper includes an important contribution to the topic.
1.3 How We Conducted Our SLR on BMI: Methods 9
In contrast to content analysis, themes are not identified as “the most representative”
or “the most frequently mentioned” concepts, but they do capture important concepts
related to the research objectives (Ryan and Bernard 2000).
As part of a constructionist paradigm,3 thematic analysis is a useful and flexible
tool to approach a fragmented subject such as BMI, as it assists in understanding it,
and the key research areas related to it. After discussing and negotiating how to
conduct the analysis and determine the themes, we conducted an inductive
data-driven thematic analysis without a pre-existing theoretical or coding frame.
This approach requires reading and re-reading data in iterative cycles to identify
themes. The themes identified from the first analysis were diverse so, following
Jones et al. (2011), we applied an interactive process of theme accordance and
categorization to ensure consistency within and across theme categories. In this
process, we developed superordinate classifications containing subclasses of themes
and checked for duplication and redundancy at each level (Jones et al. 2011; Noy
and McGuinness 2001).
The thematic and ontological analysis produced 56 themes. After discussion, we
grouped these into similar first-order (T1), second-order (T2), and, when possible,
third-order themes (T3), followed by a hierarchical and subsequent categorization.
Part D of Appendix 1.2 illustrates the processes followed to validate the thematic
and the ontological analysis. The authors summarized the content of all the con-
sidered 156 papers in this SLR in Appendix 3.1. In the third chapter of this book the
ontological tables will be discussed, illustrating the super-theme order, the
second-order themes, the first-order themes, and the thematic descriptive statements
that resulted from the interactive reconciliation processes.
As shown in Table 1.2, the 156 papers were published in a variety of journals from
different disciplines ranging from strategy to innovation, and including marketing,
entrepreneurship, organization studies, and practice-oriented journals. The journals
that have been more active in welcoming papers on BMI are Strategy & Leadership
(published by Emerald), International Journal of Innovation Management (pub-
lished by World Scientific), Long Range Planning (Published by Elsevier), and
Research Technology Management (published by the Industrial Research Institute)
all of these publications are listed in Scopus and have a relatively well-established
scientific solidity. In addition, over the past decade top tier journals like Strategic
Management Journal, Research Policy, Journal of Business Research, Industrial
3
The constructionist paradigm is drawn from the constructionist epistemology, according to which
the interpretation of phenomena is a process that includes observers’ personal knowledge and
experience.
1.4 Quantitative Analysis of the Papers Considered in the SLR 11
The SLR revealed that several methodologies have been used to study the BMI
phenomenon. The methods employed by researchers can be divided in two main
14 1 Systematic Literature Review
categories: qualitative and quantitative methods. The former includes single case
studies, multiple case studies, longitudinal case studies, and interviews, whereas the
latter encompasses surveys, experiments, and the statistical analysis of secondary
data.
Because BMI is a complex new phenomenon, case-based research has been very
useful, especially in the earlier studies. In contrast, quantitative and replicable
research is usually employed to validate concepts and relationships and the use of
mixed methods is particularly suitable to improve the rigor of research addressing
the complexity of the investigated phenomenon.
The methodological approaches adopted in the papers of the SLR merit dis-
cussion. As shown in Table 1.3, of the 156 works analyzed, 80 papers (51% of the
total papers analyzed) used the case-study method and interviews. Specifically, 30
papers adopted a single case-study (19% of the total), 22 papers adopted a multiple
case-study method (14%), 16 papers adopted a longitudinal perspective (10%) and
12 papers conducted interviews (8%).
Twenty-three papers included quantitative analysis (15%), five of which adopted
a longitudinal perspective. Seven papers (4.5%) used mixed methods. Six papers
focused on BMI literature reviews and conceptual studies, 24 were addressed to
practitioners with no aim of contributing to the academic BMI literature, and there
were 16 theoretical papers with no explicit managerial contributions.
1.4.2 Industries
There are many industries represented in BMI studies (see Table 1.4). Specifically,
23 articles declared an aim of developing cross-industry studies, demonstrating the
1.4 Quantitative Analysis of the Papers Considered in the SLR 15
validly of their results in multiple contexts. The most-often analyzed industry was
the technological sector, with 39 articles using technology companies as a source of
evidence for their analysis of BMI. Similarly, 11 articles focused on e-businesses,
regarding the internet and social media as an interaction between digital tech-
nologies and BMI. There were also 25 papers focused on services; that number
being made up of five in the B2B services field, 14 in the B2C equivalent, and the
remainder targeting cross-industry services. Other industries used for this com-
parative research were: manufacturing (11), the energy sector (5), sustainable
technologies (6), healthcare (4) and food (3). Finally, 29 papers did not focus on a
specific industry. In conclusion, publication dates reveal the most up to date
research focuses on technology industries, services, and digital platforms. Similarly,
the digital age has encouraged BMI studies in the context of new and fast growing
online platforms and applications.
The BMI literature shows that the studies have been conducted mostly in Europe,
Asia, and the USA (see Table 1.5). In order to establish which country the study
related to, we controlled for the location of data collection and if not available, we
controlled for the authors’ locations. Thus, location points were gathered according
to where studies took place, if the article utilized case studies, surveys, and
observations. Otherwise, the location of the authors was considered if the article
employed empirical analyses or published secondary data. In the case of literature
reviews and conceptual papers, the location was not considered.
The analysis revealed that even though the term business model was first
developed in practitioners’ studies and published in North American journals,
European researchers started to study the BMI phenomenon earlier. Of the total of
156 papers, 62 studied an European context, with the differences in the distribution
16 1 Systematic Literature Review
as shown in Table 1.5. The studies conducted on the American continent number
15, of which 12 are located in the USA, two in Canada and one in Argentina. There
are also many studies conducted in Asia (15), and China is the leading country with
seven BMI publications, while three were conducted in India, three in Taiwan, one
in Japan and one in Korea. There have been only three attempts to study BMI in
Africa as far as we can detect. Twenty-seven papers analyzed global companies or
employed global survey samples of managers or customers. Finally, 30 papers are
conceptual, practice-oriented, or literature reviews, and so cannot be considered to
belong to specific locations.
The diversity of locations shows the growing importance to research of BMI as a
topic and its ongoing attraction to modern researchers worldwide.
1.4.4 Disciplines
create and capture value for stakeholders through a BM (e.g., Tongur and Engwall
2014; Zott and Amit 2008, 2010). Organizational studies focused on behaviors,
such as learning, experimentation, and trial-and-error activities on the part of
managers, teams, top managers, and entrepreneurs (e.g., McGrath 2010; Rindova
and Kotha 2001; Freeman and Engel 2007; Nicholls-Nixon et al. 2000; O’Reilly
and Tushman 2008). Considering the customer perspective, marketing studies
analyzed target customers and the related value proposition (Dmitriev et al. 2014;
Wu et al. 2013); new consumption/distribution models (Baumeister et al. 2015) and
new product conceptualization such as the servitization of manufactured products
(Nenonen and Storbacka 2010; Storbacka et al. 2012). Finally, entrepreneurship
literature analyzed disruptive and substantial innovation, which was introduced and
developed to seize new economic opportunities (Gerasymenko et al. 2015;
Osiyevskyy and Dewald 2015).
Table 1.6 illustrates the results of our SLR, revealing that most of the papers
belonged to the strategic management discipline (43). The second most populated
field is entrepreneurship (28), followed by practice-oriented papers (25), marketing
(18) and organizational works (16). The rest of the papers were literature reviews or
practice-oriented, and so could not be categorized into one of the above-mentioned
disciplines.
1.5 Conclusion
This chapter presented the SLR as an evidence-based tool for scientific knowledge
creation, both in the medical (Greenhalgh 1997; Davies and Crombie 1998), and
social sciences (Denyer and Neely 2004; Tranfield et al. 2003; Rousseau et al.
2008; Jones et al. 2011).
This book is the result of a literature review that follows a rigorous method of
data collection and analysis, that aims to enhance the understanding of BMI.
Mapping the related themes, and outlining the theoretical approaches, we developed
our research adhering to the principles of transparency, clarity, focus, unification of
research, and practitioner communities, equality, accessibility, broad coverage, and
synthesis (Tranfield et al. 2003; Thorpe et al. 2005).
In this way, we reformed the meta-analysis of the collected papers using a
thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke 2006), an inductive method to study
18 1 Systematic Literature Review
qualitative evidence and research. Finally, in order to synthesize data and contribute
to scientific knowledge, we applied an informal ontological classification
(Chandrasekaran et al. 1999; Noy and McGuinness 2001; Saab and Fonseca 2008;
Jones et al. 2011), where the subjective and cultural assumptions of researchers
affect the phenomenon under scrutiny.
In order to investigate the distribution of BMI research, the first chapter also
provided some descriptive analysis related to BMI literature, such as the publishing
journals, the methodological approaches, the industries investigated by researchers,
the geographical location, and the disciplines under which BMI papers can be
categorized.
The following chapters present the reporting phase of thematic analysis results
(Tranfield et al. 2003), beginning with an analysis of the definitions of BMI.
A. Source of information
1. Peer-reviewed journal articles only
2. Empirical and conceptual and review.
B. Exclusion criteria
1. Studies focused on business model rather than business model innovation
2. Studies declaring business model innovation in the title and in the abstract
without being its primarily focus
3. Research published in edited books and conference proceedings
4. Editorials
5. Articles discussing business model education or research techniques
6. Case studies for teaching purposes
7. Articles unavailable in the databases.
C. Search method—Keyword research
1. Articles across academic journals with no temporal boundaries
2. Database selection by the keyword search “Business Model Innovation”
using Scopus, Ebsco, ABI Proquest complete and Web of Science
3. ABI Proquest and EBSCO (incorporating Business Source Premiere and
Econlit) resulted the most comprehensive
4. Initial focus on: (a) citation and abstract, and (b) title
5. Keywords initial search
Appendix 1.1: Procedures for Sourcing, Search, Selection … 19
6. Keyword realignment
5. Final check by two authors verifying the match between papers’ content and
the objectives of the systematic review (7 papers excluded from A category)
6. Only A papers are considered for the thematic analysis (n = 156).
A. Data organization
1. Organize A papers in chronological order up until those published in
September 2015.
2. Prepare Excel file to record and compare coding by researchers.
3. The Excel file has to contain the following information respecting the
authors’ language: title, abstract, authors, publication date, publication title,
indication if academic or practitioner publication (yes/no), keywords,
research question, theoretical perspective, sample, research context (sector
or industry), research method, main results, BM definition, BMI definition,
and boundaries.
B. Theme identification
1. Two researchers individually scrutinize each paper to identify the objective
of the paper, research questions, key arguments, research methods, the
business model definition used in the paper, the business model innovation
definition, its theoretical perspective and its presented outcomes.
2. The researchers write a statement individually describing the primary focus
of each paper, paying attention to the conceptual terminology and vocab-
ulary employed by the authors.
3. After reviewing 30 papers, the researchers compare their statements and
discuss how to resolve misalignments (if any).
4. From the statement at least three order thematic categories have to be
identified (T1, T2, and T3).
5. Preliminary names are given to the thematic categories.
6. Definitive category names result from discussions and interactions between
authors, and these thematic categories will be applied for the remaining
papers in the Excel file.
7. After every 30 papers, the researchers align their results for consistency.
C. Ontological organization
1. The authors discuss and agree on the three order thematic categories (T1,
T2, and T3) for each paper.
2. According to an ontological process, from the descriptive statements the
authors gather the thematic categories according to similarities (T1), in the
same vein they form the second-order (T2) and major thematic areas (T3)
forming a taxonomic (subtheme—super-theme) hierarchy.
Appendix 1.2: Procedures for Thematic Analysis and Ontological … 21
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References 23
2.1 Introduction
The extensive emphasis placed on business model innovation in both research and
practice, comes from the legitimacy of business models as an academic research
stream. For this reason, this chapter offers an extensive overview of the business
model concept and definitions from various theoretical perspectives.
The chapter begins with a review of the most relevant definitions of a BM in the
literature. The review allowed to propose a conceptual framework that will improve
the common understanding of a BM. It is very important to start with the definition
of BM concept, because BMI literature has developed not only in relation with the
“innovation” term—that can vary according to the adopted theoretical and disci-
pline perspective—but also through different meanings related to the lenses applied
by the authors.
This framework will be also useful to understanding how the BM concept has
developed in BMI literature, and will thus provide detailed information on the BMI
phenomenon and its meanings.
Table 2.1 Selected business model definitions related to the conceptual abstraction of BMs
Author(s), Year Definition Conceptual
abstraction
Chesbrough and The business model is “the heuristic logic that Strategic
Rosenbloom (2002) connects technical potential with the realization of
economic value” (p. 529)
Magretta (2002) Business models are “stories that explain how Narrative
enterprises work.” (p. 4)
Afuah (2003) “The set of activities a firm performs, how it Strategic
performs them, and when it performs them as it uses
its resources to perform activities, given its
industry, to create superior customer value … and
put itself in a position to appropriate the value”
(p. 9)
Teece (2010) “A business model articulates the logic, the data and Strategic
other evidence that support a value proposition for
the customer, and a viable structure of revenues and
costs for the enterprise delivering that value”
(p. 179)
Casadesus-Masanell “A business model is … a reflection of the firm’s Strategic
and Ricart (2010) realized strategy” (p. 195)
Cavalcante et al. “An abstraction of the principles supporting the Process-based
(2011) development of a firm’s core repeated processes”
Aspara et al. (2013) The corporate business model resides primarily in Cognitive
the minds of the corporation’s top managers or top
management team (TMT) members—essentially, it
is the corporate top managers’ perceived logic of
how value is created by the corporation, especially
regarding the value-creating links between the
corporation’s portfolio of businesses (p. 460)
Martins et al. (2015) Business model is an example of a schema, defined Cognitive
as a cognitive structure that consists of concepts and
relations among them that organize managerial
understandings about the design of activities and
exchanges that reflect the critical interdependencies
and value creation relations in their firms’ exchange
networks
The business model has become a popular concept in both research and practice.
The business model literature has evolved since its very early emergence in the
academic literature (Bellman et al. 1957; Jones 1960). It saw explosive growth
during the dotcom boom, and since then, research on business models has
28 2 Business Model Definition and Boundaries
Table 2.3 Activities and decisions related to the components of BMs [advanced table of BM
components originally developed by Dmitriev et al. (2014) and adapted according to Wirtz et al.
(2016’s) work]
Source BM components Wirtz et al.’s BM
components classification
Amit and Zott Transaction content, transaction structure, Strategic activities
(2001a) transaction governance
Magretta Customer, customer value proposition, Managerial decisions and
(2002) value delivery method, economic logic value outcome
that supports delivery of value to the
customer at an appropriate cost
Chesbrough Value proposition, market segment, Strategic activities,
and revenue generation mechanisms, value managerial decisions,
Rosenbloom chain, complementary assets, cost relationships and value
(2002) structure and profit potential of the outcome
offering, position of the firm within the
value network of suppliers and
customers, competitive strategy
Johnson et al. Customer value proposition, profit Strategic activities,
(2008) formula, key resources, key processes managerial decisions, and
resources
Osterwalder Customer segment, value propositions, Strategic activities,
and Pigneur channels of distribution, customer managerial decisions,
(2010) relationships, revenue streams, key resources, networks and
resources, key activities, key network value outcome
partnerships, cost structure
Santos et al. Set of activities, set of organizational Strategic activities, and
(2009) units, linkages (physical transactions and relationships
human relationships), governance
mechanisms
Teece (2010) Market segment, value proposition, Managerial decisions
mechanism to capture value, isolating
mechanism
Mason and Technology, market offering, network Strategic activities and
Spring (2011) architecture network
Table 2.4 Selected business model definitions related to the content of BM components
Author(s), Definition Discipline
Year
Amit and Zott “A Business model depicts the content, structure and Strategic
(2001a) governance of transactions designed to create value management
through the exploitations of business opportunities”
Afuah (2003) “A business model is a framework for making money. It Strategic
is the set of activities which a firm performs, how it management
performs them, and when it performs them so as to offer
its customers benefits they want and to earn a profit”
Morris et al. A Business model has six fundamental components: value Entrepreneurship
(2005) proposition, customer, internal processes/competencies,
external positioning, economic model, and
personal/investor factors
Osterwalder “A business model is a conceptual tool containing a set of Practice-oriented
et al. (2005) objects, concepts and their relationships with the objective studies
to express the business logic of a specific firm. Therefore,
we must consider which concepts and relationships allow
a simplified description and representation of what value
is provided to customers, how this is done and with which
financial consequences.” (p. 5)
“A business model is a conceptual tool that contains a set
of elements and their relationships and allows expressing
the business logic of a specific firm. It is a description of
the value a firm offers to one or several segments of
customers and of the architecture of the firm and its
network of partners for creating marketing, and delivering
this value and relationship capital, to generate profitable
and sustainable revenue streams” (pp. 17–18)
Johnson et al. Business models “consist of four interlocking elements, Practice-oriented
(2008) that, taken together, create and deliver value” (p. 52). studies
These, according to the authors, are customer value
proposition, profit formula, key resources, and key
processes
Storbacka “The business model concept is argued to be externally Marketing
et al. (2013) oriented and depicts the relationships that firms have with
a variety of actors in their value networks, thus capturing
the change toward networked value creation” (p. 706)
• The BM has been studied in literature as a unit of analysis per se that is useful
for research on boundary-spanning innovation (Zott and Amit 2007);
• In many definitions, a BM is a concept used to represent how firms do business
in a dynamic way (Zott et al. 2011);
• Another common understanding of the BM is as a tool with the main purpose of
the creation, capture, and delivery of value creation (e.g., Amit and Zott 2001b;
Baden-Fuller and Morgan 2010; Chesbrough 2007, 2010; Johnson et al. 2008;
Teece 2010).
30 2 Business Model Definition and Boundaries
order to understand the nature and compositions of BMs (Baden-Fuller and Morgan
2010). Methodologically, using a cognitive approach, the conceptualization of BMs
has to be developed through more inductive research methods, where practitioners
and researchers co-create meanings and how BMs are understood.
This first level of analysis illustrates how the researchers have abstracted BMs so
far and, to the best of our knowledge, few attempts have been made to use other
conceptualizations, such as the relationship, network, or institutional ones
(Dimaggio and Powell 1983; Nenonen and Storbacka 2010). Alternative perspec-
tives could provide new insights into and understanding of the nature and char-
acteristics of BMs.
For instance, BM studies using a network conceptualization, have always con-
sidered networked BM as exchanged relationships (Amit and Zott 2001a) or col-
lective representations (Palo and Tähtinen 2013) among companies. In our literature
review, we have not detected researches that developed a wider relationship per-
spective of the network theory, including external stakeholders such as customers,
competitors and suppliers (Nenonen and Storbacka 2010). BMs, in fact, can be
understood as a model consisting in relationships and interrelations between focal
companies, suppliers, customers, and partners, that together co-create value. These
alternative BM conceptualizations could advance the knowledge about this
phenomenon.
According to Foss and Saebi (2017), BMs, and in particular BMIs, can be con-
sidered from an architectural point of view and/or as a set of components. In this
paragraph, we will chronologically analyze the BM literature, emphasizing the
architectural characteristic of BMs.
Baden-Fuller and Morgan (2010), following a deep analysis of the descriptions
of BMs, state that “one role of business models is to provide a set of generic level
descriptors of how a firm organizes itself to create and distribute value in a prof-
itable manner”.
In management studies, representations describe the salient firm components,
behaviors and activities and these pictures are able to contemporarily capture
common features and specific peculiarities of firms. BM representations can be used
by researchers and practitioners for several purposes: for definition purposes, for
instance of categorizations and taxonomies; for firm development purposes, such as
experimentations with new BM designs; and for competitive purposes such as
comparisons and differentiations (Baden-Fuller and Morgan 2010). Managers can
use an effective representation of a BM to communicate the strategies of available
to their firm, to share meanings among different actors, and to make decisions.
34 2 Business Model Definition and Boundaries
In this paragraph we took the leaf from Foss and Saebi (2017’s) work, underling the
nature and the characteristics of the components of BMs. In particular, we enhanced
the categorization of BM components identified by Wirtz et al. (2016), also con-
sidering the management discipline in which the works have been introduced. Wirtz
et al. (2016) categorized BM definitions according to the characteristics of the BM
components, namely: strategic activities and managerial decisions; resources; net-
works and relationships and value outcomes.
Accordingly, in order to provide an overview of the main components of BMs,
we propose in Table 2.3 a summary of BM components identified in the literature.
36 2 Business Model Definition and Boundaries
Consistent with the management disciplines stemming from our systematic lit-
erature review (i.e., strategic management, organizational studies, marketing,
entrepreneurship and practice-oriented studies), the BM works usually describe BM
components through different lenses, providing theoretical conceptualizations and
generalizable laws of function. Alternatively, practitioners typically try to be more
explicit, describing the details of BM components, using normative and directive
approaches to the study of BMs. In this paragraph for each component identified by
Wirtz et al. (2016), we will provide both the discipline and the practitioners’
perspectives, when available.
1. Strategic Activities and managerial decisions. Practitioners were among the
early pioneers attempting to identify the components of BMs. For instance,
Hamel (2000), describing the strategic BM components, identified the core
strategies that allow companies to create a competitive structure able to suc-
cessfully introduce technological innovation into the market.
The strategic management literature mainly focuses on BM activities (strategic
activities) that companies must implement to create value and gain a competitive
position in the market (Chesbrough and Rosenbloom 2002). Thus, constructs of
BMs are essential for the understanding of the value creation (Amit and Zott 2001a;
Chesbrough and Rosenbloom 2002). Zott et al. (2011) added that the strategy
literature of BMs, encompasses the study of value creation, performance, and
competitive advantage. In particular, strategy literature on BMs focused mainly on
the concept of value (Porter 1985, 2000), with particular attention paid to the notion
of value creation and the value proposition, that can generate a unique business
model and thus a substantial competitive advantage.
In contrast, in entrepreneurship studies, BM components are mainly linked to
managers’ decisions (decision-making components) taken to identify and exploit
opportunities inside and outside the company (Chesbrough and Rosenbloom 2002;
Magretta 2002; Ireland et al. 2003). Accordingly, Casadesus-Masanell and Ricart
(2010: 198) explain, business models represent “concrete choices made by man-
agement about how the organization must operate and the consequences of these
choices.” Magretta (2002) identifies the key decisions related to BM components, in
the form of key questions that managers have to answer. Some examples of these
questions are: Who is the customer? What does the customer value? How can we
make money in this business? What is the economic logic that explains how we can
deliver value to customers at an appropriate cost?
In addition, practitioners focus of the decisions managers have to take, in order
to create a “basic architecture underlying all successful businesses” (Johnson 2010).
The same work isolates four main elements of BMs: a customer value proposition, a
profit formula, key resources, and key processes. Accordingly, Osterwalder et al.
(2005) proposed a simplification of the BM design, identifying the core decisions
and activities, such as the value offered by the company, its customers, the archi-
tecture of the firm, its network of partners, the delivering structure and relationship
capital, and generating profitable and sustainable revenue streams.
2.2 BM Definition and Boundaries 37
4. Value. Value is recognized as the main purpose of a BM, and this value com-
ponent has been examined through different theoretical lenses: marketing (i.e.,
customer value); economics (i.e., profits and margins); strategy (i.e., competi-
tiveness); the organization (i.e., organizational efficiency), entrepreneurship (i.e.,
innovation) and an institutional lens (i.e., market structure efficiency).
With regard to customer value, many definitions of a BM contain elements
similar to those in the definition of Coombes and Nicholson (2013: 657): “value is
not just something produced, rather it is something that is exchanged and con-
sumed.” According to the marketing literature, customer value goes beyond the
tangible product consumers can touch and feel to the intangibility of a brand’s value
in the eye of a customer causing them to come back repeatedly to repurchase and
remain loyal customers.
BM research focused on firm rents (such as profits and margins), employs
economics approaches when value is related to real economic performance, such as
margin compound annual growth rate (CAGR) and stock price CAGR, profit after
tax and operational margins (e.g., Demil and Lecocq 2010). Other scholars instead
adopt a cognitive approach to BM value, considering not only the real economic
value, but also the economic performance as perceived by managers (Aspara et al.
2010). Strategy literature considers competitiveness and differentiation the most
important value of the BM (Sorescu et al. 2011b; Desyllas and Sako 2013). While
organization studies also consider organizational efficacy and boundaries as the
main value of BMs (Spector 2013; Carayannis et al. 2015). From an entrepre-
neurship perspective, BM value is understood as innovation, social enhancement
and market opportunities (Demil et al. 2015), while institutional perspectives are
more concerned with industry level performance and the effects of BM on the
structure of the industry (Gambardella and McGahan 2010).
Finally, from a marketing perspective, the value is not created only for a single
firm, but value is understood in a networked manner and thus something shared
between stakeholders (Ehret et al. 2013b).
In summary, the main research streams developed in the literature about the
components of BMs (i.e., strategic activities and managerial decisions; resources;
networks and relationships; value) reflect, all the elements that a company has to
develop in order to create and capture value, as shown in Table 2.4.
The research that defines BMs in a dynamic way, implies that BMs are not static but
continuously or periodically changing in terms of components, relationships, and
structure. This dynamic aspect has a different nature depending on the theoretical
lens applied to the BM. The dynamic vision of the BM is strongly related to the
concept of Business Model Innovation (BMI) that is the subject of this book.
2.2 BM Definition and Boundaries 39
the firm can co-create value. Accordingly in the SDL (Vargo and Lusch 2004), for
instance, stakeholders (partners and customers) are the repository of specific
resources and competences that can co-create value with firms, so driving changes
and dynamics in BMs.
Organizational studies, and in particular the BM literature affected by organi-
zational systems/configurations (Siggelkow 2001, 2002), providing insights into the
activity system perspective on BMs (Zott and Amit 2010); the organization of the
core elements and activities through a BM (Morris et al. 2005); determining the
core components of a BM (Demil and Lecocq 2010); and understanding the internal
configurational fit of business model components and the external configurational
fit between the supplier’s and customer’s business models (Nenonen and Storbacka
2010). More importantly, according to the organizational discipline, the dynamic
nature of BMs relates to learning processes such as experimentation and
trial-and-error. This discipline is the one that more than any other explains how BM
components could potentially change.
For practice-oriented studies, BMs are tools that can be used to represent
changes in strategies and tactics undertaken by firms adopting specific normative
models and frameworks (see for instance, Osterwalder 2004; Osterwalder and
Pigneur 2010). Thus, practice-oriented articles focus more on tools and pragmatic
frameworks to explain how to activate the dynamic nature of BMs (Deschamps
2005; Tuulenmäki and Välikangas 2011).
Table 2.7 Citation analysis of BM definition in 156 papers utilized in our systematic literature
review
Authors Definition No. of
citations
Amit and Zott “The content, structure, and governance of transactions 24
(2001a) designed so as to create value through the exploitation
of business opportunities” (2001: 511)
Zott and Amit (2010) “A system of interdependent activities that transcends 15
the focal firm and spans its boundaries” (p. 216)
Chesbrough and “Heuristic logic that connects technical potential with 14
Rosenbloom (2002) the realization of economic value” (p. 529)
Morris et al. (2005) A business model is a “concise representation of how an 11
interrelated set of decision variables in the areas of
venture strategy, architecture, and economics are
addressed to create sustainable competitive advantage in
defined markets” (p. 727)
Osterwalder and “The rationale of how an organization creates, delivers, 11
Pigneur (2010) and captures value” (p. 14)
Teece (2010) The business model design involves assessments with 10
respect to determining: (1) the identity of market
segments to be targeted; (2) the benefit the enterprise
will deliver to the customer; (3) the technologies and
features that are to be embedded in the product and
service; (4) how the revenue and cost structure of a
business is to be ‘designed’ (and, if necessary,
‘redesigned’) to meet customer needs; (5) the way in
which technologies are to be assembled and offered to
the customer; and (6) the mechanisms and manner by
which value is to be captured, and competitive
advantage sustained. These issues are all interrelated.
They lie at the core of the fundamental question asked
by business strategists—which is how does one build a
sustainable competitive advantage
Zott and Amit (2008) A structural template of how a focal firm transacts with 8
customers, partners, and vendors. It captures the pattern
of the firm’s boundary-spanning connections with factor
and product markets (p. 3)
Zott and Amit (2007) “Novelty-centered business models refer to new ways of 7
conducting economic exchanges among various
participants.” (p. 10)
Zott et al. (2011) BMs explain new network- and activity system–based 5
value creation mechanisms and sources of competitive
advantage (p. 1035)
Osterwalder et al. A BM is composed of nine building blocks: value 5
(2005) proposition, target customer, distribution channel,
relationship, value configuration, core competency,
partner network, cost structure, revenue model
(continued)
46 2 Business Model Definition and Boundaries
2.5 Conclusion
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Chapter 3
Business Model Innovation: A Thematic
Map
Abstract The third chapter is the core of this book and it introduces a fine-grained
ontological exploration of BMI. Specifically, this chapter focuses on the results of
our systematic literature review and the related thematic and the ontological anal-
yses of the 156 papers selected for this research. With the help of thematic maps
and ontological tables, the authors illustrate the 56 themes resulting from the
analyses, categorized into seven macro themes: definitions of BMI, drivers of BMI,
outcomes of BMI, barriers to BMI, enablers of BMI, tools of BMI, and processes of
BMI. Moreover, this chapter provides a specific discussion on the conceptualization
of BMI that reveals its dual nature: the first one being connected to the changes to
BM components and the second one to the dynamisms related to the continuous
innovation of BMs. Finally, the paper concludes with specific discussions and
presents a research agenda, and related future research suggestions, for each
macro-theme identified in the systematic literature review (i.e., BMI definitions,
drivers, outcomes, barriers, enablers, tools, and processes).
3.1 Introduction
Business model innovation is a holistic concept used to deal with issues related to
the search for new business logics and new ways for a company to create and
capture value for its stakeholders. It refers to finding new ways to generate profits
and define value propositions for customers, partners, and suppliers (e.g., Comes
and Berniker 2008; Amit and Zott 2012; Casadesus-Masanell and Zhu 2013).
Business model innovation describes how the firm transforms itself with reference
to where it was before and/or to the industry convention to pursue higher perfor-
mance and competitive advantage (Morris et al. 2011; Kuratko and Audretsch
2013) that allow it to exploit opportunities (George and Bock 2011).
Despite the extensive emphasis on business model innovation in both research
and practice, the legitimacy of business models as an academic research stream
has often been criticized. This is largely due to the fragmented and interdisciplinary
nature of the business model concept and business model innovation
(Chesbrough and Rosenbloom 2002; Osterwalder et al. 2005; Shafer et al. 2005;
Teece 2010; Zott and Amit 2013). Research on business model innovation draws on
a range of disciplines and perspectives, such as management and entrepreneurship,
innovation, and organizational studies, as well as marketing. Despite this, it has
been argued that the phenomenon still lacks a solid theoretical foundation and an
intellectual home in social sciences (Teece 2010). This lack of ‘home base’ drawing
on a variety of disciplines and theoretical foundations as well as various contexts
(Schneider and Spieth 2013) is mainly seen as a downside of business model
innovation research hindering the development of the theoretical field. However,
this could also be seen as a richness that only a systematic literature review can
detect.
The wide and fragmented field of literature on the business model concept offers
only a few reviews to date (e.g., Zott et al. 2011; Klang et al. 2014), although they
do generate important and valuable insights into the concept, its scholarly devel-
opment, and future potential. With regards to BMI, Schneider and Spieth (2013) are
among the first researchers to review the academic literature on the topic to identify
patterns, structures and themes to discuss the potential underlying its theoretical
foundations. However, despite its valuable contribution by mapping the young but
fragmented area of literature, the review represents a rather limited view of the field;
business model innovation is used as the only key word, and the review includes
only articles that focus on the innovation of established business models resulting in
a final sample of 35 articles.
Another main contribution to BMI study is the literature review proposed by
Foss and Saebi (2017), who studied 150 works about BMI and provided a deeper
understanding of the definition of BMI, its dimensions, a framework including
drivers, outcomes and moderators, and finally some application fields of BMI.
Despite the undiscussed prominence of this work, the framework we are proposing
in this chapter differs from the one developed by Foss and Saebi (2017) for a
detailed ontological analysis that results in the identification of more than 56 key
themes. Within each theme, we discuss the thematic patterns, potential inconsis-
tencies and debates, and areas that require further elaboration. Thus, this chapter
aims to produce a more holistic and integrative review of the current literature on
the dynamics of business models and their innovation. Hence, the objective of this
chapter is twofold: (1) to understand the evolution of research on business model
innovation, and (2) to analyze the key thematic areas in the literature and their
contribution to understanding business model innovation.
As a result, we develop a thematic map of the different themes emerged within
the business model innovation research, and discuss the implications for our
understanding of business model innovation within each thematic area. We also
provide a set of ontological tables for each of the seven major types emerged about
BMI (i.e., definition, drivers, outcomes, barriers, enablers, tools and processes). The
ontological tables, differently from the thematic maps, illustrate the super-theme
3.1 Introduction 57
order, the second-order themes, the first-order themes, and the thematic descriptive
statements, with a chronology of their emergence, that resulted from the interactive
reconciliation processes. It is extremely important to note that the classifications
that we offer here are done with the aim of offering an overview that is as much as
possible detailed and at the same time effective in systematizing the extant
knowledge on BMI in general. Starting from this classification, other aggregations
and systematizations can be done according to specific aims. So for example, if one
needs to know how the extant literature contributes to the understanding of the
dynamic aspects of BMI, one could focus on the nature of BMI mechanisms and
aggregate the themes and adjust the tables accordingly.
Thus, we interpret the literature according to 56 key themes. Within each theme,
we discuss the thematic patterns, potential inconsistencies and debates (see Jones
et al. 2011). Finally, we present some final conclusions and areas for future
research.
This chapter presents the results of our systematic literature review and the related
ontological analysis. We reviewed 156 papers and using an inductive thematic
analysis (Jones et al. 2011) identified 56 key themes. Following an ontological and
interactive process between the authors we created a domain ontology of BMI,
capturing first-order themes (T1) and second-order themes (T2), the latter grouped
in thematic areas (or key thematic areas). Compared to previous systematic liter-
ature reviews (Schneider and Spieth 2013), this work analyzed a wider database of
material (i.e., one that includes practitioner works and a wide range of management
journals), and is thus able to show more fine-grained domains of BMI, such as
definitions, drivers, contingencies and outcomes.
A thematic map, created with Mindomo1 (Fig. 3.1) illustrates the 56 key the-
matic (first-order themes) of BMI and helps to visualize and structure the discussion
of the results of our work. The main branches represent the thematic areas, such as
the type of research developed around the subject of BMI. From these thematic
areas extend sub-branches, representing the second-order themes and from these
themes, fine-grained first-order themes, directly derived from the ontological
analysis of the literature review. The numbers in the map refer to the number of
papers classified in each second-order theme. Finally, we have reported an onto-
logical table for each key thematic area, in order to present a detailed visual rep-
resentation of BMI research.
In the process, we illustrate our understanding of the literature of BMIs and for
each theme we discuss the main issues, outlines and discrepancies.
1
www.mindomo.com.
58 3 Business Model Innovation: A Thematic Map
While the BMI concept is used in different ways, contexts, and disciplines, some
evolution paths can be identified based on the literature review. In particular, of the
156 papers analyzed, 16 did not provide a definition of BM or BMI. These were
mainly published in journals targeted at practitioners. This result is in line with Zott
et al. (2011), who found a similar proportion of papers in the BM literature stream
that did not define BM. They stressed that this is problematic since it gives rise to a
multitude of possible interpretations.
Analyzing the timeline of BMI definitions shows that (Chesbrough and
Rosenbloom 2002) initiated BMI research, focusing on the relationship between
value creation and BMI. Early papers conceptualized BMI as the introduction of
3.2 Thematic Map of BMI Literature Review 59
technical innovation in an existing corporate BM. Three years later, Morris et al.
(2005) first underlined the transformational nature and development processes of
BMs. Subsequently, Demil and Lecocq (2010) developed a transformational
approach to studying BM evolution, building on the dynamic perspective of BM
components first introduced by Winter and Szulanski (2001). This dynamic
approach was later followed by Chesbrough (2010), Sosna et al. (2010), and
Bohnsack et al. (2014).
In contrast, according to Teece (2010), BMI definition is related to the design
and architecture of value creation, delivery, and capture and underlines constant
change of BMs according to the vision of continuous BMI introduced by Mitchell
and Coles (2003), Mitchell and Bruckner Coles (2004). To provide a comprehen-
sive BMI definition, Zott and Amit (2010) introduced a systems perspective of
novelty-centered BMs, where innovation is related to the newness of BM design
elements, for example, adopting new activities (activity content system), new ways
of linking activities (activity-system structure), and new ways of governing activ-
ities (activity-system governance).
We found that four key research fields interested in BMI (i.e., marketing,
organizational studies, strategic management, and entrepreneurship) view the BMI
concept from distinctive perspectives. In marketing, BMI is mainly conceptualized
as change in the target customer and the related value proposition (Dmitriev et al.
2014; Wu et al. 2013); as a new consumption/distribution model (Baumeister et al.
2015) and as a new product conceptualization such as the servitization of manu-
factured products (Nenonen and Storbacka 2010; Storbacka et al. 2012). In orga-
nizational studies, BMI is mainly conceived as change that managers and
management teams can realize through learning experimentation (e.g., McGrath
2010; Rindova and Kotha 2001) and trial-and-error activities (e.g., Freeman and
Engel 2007; Nicholls-Nixon et al. 2000; O’Reilly and Tushman 2008). In contrast,
in strategic management, BMI is mainly conceptualized as the introduction of
innovative ways to create and capture value for stakeholders of a single or net-
worked company through a BM (e.g., Tongur and Engwall 2014; Zott and Amit
2008, 2010). Finally, in entrepreneurship, BMI is associated with disruptive and
substantial innovation introduced and developed to seize new economic opportu-
nities (Gerasymenko et al. 2015; Osiyevskyy and Dewald 2015).
To attempt to make sense of the range of definitions, a number of papers have
focused mainly on how the concept of BMI is defined. This thematic area in the
BMI literature emerged in 2005. A total of 21 publications centered around three
different themes: categorization, essence, and the dynamic and process-based
conceptualization of BMI as shown in Fig. 3.2.
First, most publications (15) within the theme focused on categorizing definitions,
including industry-based categorizations, types of BM change, and categorizations
based on BMI characteristics. Regarding industry-based BMI categorization, papers
have focused on various cases, for instance, new BMs for skills brokerage for
start-ups (Papagiannidis and Li 2005) and e-business (Dubosson-Torbay et al. 2002).
Regarding types of BM change, Cavalcante et al. (2011), distinguished the different
forms of BMI (changes) as BM creation, extension, revision, and termination. BMI
60 3 Business Model Innovation: A Thematic Map
has also been portrayed as a type of business model design that changes
activity-system elements and themes (Zott and Amit 2010). Finally, BMI has also
been categorized based on its specific characteristics. In this sense, BMI is distin-
guished from product innovation (Bucherer et al. 2012). It has been described as a
mode of service innovation (Wang et al. 2015) and “conventional” and “social” BMs
have been contrasted (Yunus et al. 2010). Further, it has been described in terms of
innovativeness (radicalism, reach, complexity), strategic context (proactiveness),
and organizational setting (openness) (Taran et al. 2015).
Secondly, four publications have discussed the essence of BMI. The evolu-
tionary nature of BMs has been detected in early and rapid internationalization
(Dunford et al. 2010), and at the level of entrepreneurial BMs through change and
value mechanisms (Svejenova et al. 2010). BMI has also been described as the
distinct “capital” of a firm in the form of dynamic capability (Mezger 2014) and a
competitive tool (Bereznoi 2015). Finally, more generally, the literature provides a
dynamic, process-based conceptualization of BMs, which recognizes and integrates
the role of individual agency (Cavalcante et al. 2011) and the role of BMs in
creating links with external partners to access resources, create value, and, in the
end, obtain opportunities for innovation (Ho et al. 2010).
Articles often simultaneously cited multiple references about BMI definitions.
For this reason, there are many nuances in the definitions of BMI in the 156 papers
included in the systematic literature review. The first ontological table (Table 3.1)
shows the key themes defining BMI, as detected in the BMI literature.
BMI drivers was the first thematic area to emerge in the BMI literature. This area
focuses on the antecedents or elements that lead to BMI. As shown in Fig. 3.3, the
review includes 60 publications in this area that correspond to 19 first-order themes
3.2 Thematic Map of BMI Literature Review 61
are marketing, learning, and innovation, which are discussed in the following
paragraphs.
Marketing activities is a highly populated sub-theme among the activities driving
BMI. Research has considered how different approaches to the market (Lee and Ho
2010), market analysis (Eriksson et al. 2008), customer knowledge management
(Wu et al. 2013), marketing channels (Cao 2014), and marketing efforts (Brettel
et al. 2012) can lead to BMI. Two main aspects emerged from the papers dealing
with marketing activities. First, market-driven and technology-driven BMI have
different antecedents and are dissimilar, especially regarding the way they are
carried out (Habtay 2012). Second, the papers tend to stress the importance to
successfully innovating BMs of knowing the market (e.g., customer knowledge or
customer-focused practices).
Another populated stream of research is focused on learning, an important
activity driving BMI. Attention has shifted from entrepreneurial learning
(Sanz-Velasco and Saemundsson 2008) to organizational learning (Andries et al.
2013; Andries and Debackere 2013) and, finally, to trial-and-error (Sosna et al.
2010) and experiential learning (Cavalcante 2014; Sinfield et al. 2012; Tuulenmäki
and Välikangas 2011). More recently, creativity and gamification have been
introduced as a special type of a collective learning activity driving BMI (Roth et al.
2015). Interestingly, the literature reveals that learning approaches are affected by
the specific environment in which a firm operates. For example, Sosna et al. (2010)
showed how the environmental situation (economic recession and recent
3.2 Thematic Map of BMI Literature Review 63
The second main thematic area of research is BMI outcomes (36 papers). As shown
in the thematic map (Fig. 3.4), research within this theme is primarily focused on
economic performance, value, industry level outcomes, and strategic actions.
Within the economic performance theme, most papers are focused on real
economic performance (e.g., Demil and Lecocq 2010; Kiron et al. 2013a, b; Nair
et al. 2012) while others examine perceived economic performance (Aspara et al.
2010; Brettel et al. 2012; Huang et al. 2012; Kiron et al. 2013a, b) and corporate
survival (Velu and Khanna 2013) as BMI outcomes. Within the real economic
performance theme is to be found the first paper that measured BMI economic
performance outcomes (Giesen et al. 2007) by considering firms listed on the stock
exchange and measuring the effects of BMI on the compound annual growth rate of
operating profit margin and stock price. The economic performance measures
employed within this theme are mainly focused on various measures of profit such
as profit margin and market share growth (Nair et al. 2012) or profit after tax and
operating margin (Demil and Lecocq 2010). This category also includes the seminal
work of Zott and Amit (2007), who studied the effects of a novelty-centered BM
design on the market value of firms’ equity. Overall, studies that measured BMI
outcomes by considering real economic performance produced consistent results
that show the positive effects of BMI. Research has continued to grow with studies
in different contexts (e.g., Cucculelli and Bettinelli 2015; Kim and Min 2015).
In contrast, papers that consider perceived economic performance as BMI out-
comes include items to measure the perceived effects of BMI on profitability
(Brettel et al. 2012). In these papers, perceived performance constructs include
items related to perceived market performance and growth over the previous three
3.2 Thematic Map of BMI Literature Review 67
years (Brettel et al. 2012), perceived cost reduction, customer satisfaction, on-time
delivery, and firms’ perceived continuous improvement (Huang et al. 2012)
Corporate survival of new firms (Velu and Khanna 2013) is an emerging theme
within economic performance outcomes of BMI.
Interestingly, and in line with strategic BMI conceptualization, another focus is
on value as an outcome. Value creation for customers (Björkdahl 2009; Sorescu
et al. 2011), including the value creation process (Chesbrough and Rosenbloom
2002), value appropriation (Desyllas and Sako 2013; Sorescu et al. 2011), and
competitiveness (Liu and Jiang 2013; Michalski 2003), is a theme that has attracted
scholarly attention. In studies within this theme, value creation goes hand in hand
with value appropriation (capture); all the papers that have focused on the former
have also considered the latter. Some papers have equated the concept of value
appropriation/capture with the concept of profiting (e.g., Björkdahl 2009; Desyllas
and Sako 2013). Regarding BMI outcomes in terms of competitiveness, both
studies considered BMI a relevant way to increase firms’ competitiveness at the
global level (Liu and Jiang 2013; Michalski 2003).
68 3 Business Model Innovation: A Thematic Map
At the industry level of analysis, papers have considered the effects of BMI on
industry structure (Gambardella and McGahan 2010) and the creation (together
with the technology) of disruptive innovations (Engel 2011). Finally, papers con-
sidering BMI outcomes were categorized under strategizing, including changes in
organizational boundaries, internationalization, and other strategic level outcomes.
BMI determines changes at an organizational level by modifying organizational
boundaries through insourcing and outsourcing (Spector 2013). In a similar vein,
adapting a BM in foreign markets may explain the success of internationalization
(Bouncken et al. 2015). Other strategic level outcomes include benefits and chal-
lenges. Benefits range from cost reduction and strategic flexibility, specialization
and speed in exploitation of opportunities (Pohle and Chapman 2006), risk sharing,
knowledge development, long-term service stability and diversification of activities
(Monios and Bergqvist 2015) to responsible innovation (as opposed to techno-
logical innovation) (Halme and Korpela 2014). Challenges are related to branding
(Baumeister et al. 2015).
The ontological table of BMI outcomes presents a detailed visual representation
of BMI research (Table 3.3).
Tools for innovating BMs is the third theme that emerged in the literature. This
category includes a total of 28 publications with three different themes: methods,
artifacts, and sector-specific elaborations (see Fig. 3.5).
Most papers in this theme are focused on the different methods available to help
managers to understand, perform, and manage BMI. These papers are focused on
practical methods and frameworks (e.g., Bouwman et al. 2008; Chesbrough 2007;
Pateli and Giaglis 2005), concepts (e.g., Abraham 2013; Huarng 2013), and
approaches (e.g., Girotra and Netessine 2013) that enhance understanding of BMI.
This stream of literature on BMI emerged in 2005 with practitioner-oriented
guidelines for managers and other practitioners to perform and evaluate BMI (Bate
and Johnston 2005). Some papers focusing on BMI methods emphasize prospective
tools for developing BMI such as the scenario planning method (Bouwman et al.
2008; Pateli and Giaglis 2005). Others propose methodological tools for creating
BMI, such as methodology for pattern-based BMI (Amshoff et al. 2015) and
systems-based methodology (Kiura et al. 2014). In a similar vein, some papers
suggest certain practices as methods for BMI, such as roadmapping to define the
necessary steps and choices in transitioning from a current to a desired business (De
Reuver et al. 2013), and experimental game-like innovation activities for BMI
(Gudiksen 2015). Others are focused on methods for testing and assessing BMI,
such as the business model framework, which assists in assessing current BMs and
the next steps to advance these (Chesbrough 2007), and an assessment tool to
evaluate an organization’s state of readiness for BMI and the potential stress for the
organization (Evans and Johnson 2013). Other publications are focused on
3.2 Thematic Map of BMI Literature Review 69
frameworks for managing BMI and related organizational decisions during BMI.
For example, (Amit and Zott 2012) identified and defined specific elements that
practitioners need to consider during BMI development. Other papers suggest
approaches to BMI to assist in innovating BMs and developing understanding of
70 3 Business Model Innovation: A Thematic Map
the scholarly field. For example, Huarng (2013) proposed the concept of the
two-tier business model, comprising a conceptual and a financial model to assist
entrepreneurs in creating new businesses.
Artifacts is an emerging category within tools for BMI, with only one publi-
cation to date. Eppler and Hoffmann (2012) examined collaborative BM generation
and found that artifacts (i.e., visual templates and physical objects) have the power
to shape the group process of developing new BMs. The third sub-theme represents
sector-specific considerations of BMI tools. The papers within this theme have
studied the hospitality sector (Kandampully 2006); music industry (Vlachos et al.
2006); service in manufacturing industry (Witell and Löfgren 2013); mobile
business and telecommunications (Ghezzi et al. 2010); retail industry (Lange and
Velamuri 2014); fashion industry (Hvass 2015); the sharing economy or collabo-
rative consumption (Matzler et al. 2015); and the base of pyramid markets (Goyal
2014). However, despite the various sectors and contexts, two common themes can
be identified across the papers. First, BMI revolves around current changes in a
specific industry or market, such as servitization in manufacturing (Witell and
Löfgren 2013), the music industry becoming more “mobile” (Vlachos et al. 2006),
or the trend in consumer markets toward sharing and collaboration (Matzler et al.
2015). Second, the proposed tools represent a type of reaction to these changes, or
how firms change or transform their old BMs into new ones (e.g., by changing a
store layout for physical retailers (Lange and Velamuri 2014) or integrating
reselling and reuse of garments into BMs in the fashion industry (Hvass 2015).
Table 3.4 shows the first, the second and the theme descriptions related to BMI
outcomes, as emerged by the ontological analysis.
More recently, the thematic area labeled BMI barriers (9 papers) has emerged in
2009. Research within this theme is in its infancy. As shown in Fig. 3.6, the focus
of papers within this theme has been on internal (e.g., Chesbrough 2010) and
external barriers (Birkin et al. 2009; Lange et al. 2015).
Papers have identified financial hurdle rates and the need to develop new value
networks targeting new or existing customers (Koen et al. 2011), the main diffi-
culties regarding the development of breakthrough BMs (Koen et al. 2010), and the
various features of network partners (Lindgren et al. 2010).
3.2 Thematic Map of BMI Literature Review 71
dissimilarities in the network partners’ business models (Lindgren et al. 2010), and
the ecosystemic nature of business models (Westerlund et al. 2014). The onto-
logical table (Table 3.5) summarizes the themes related to BMI barriers, as dis-
cussed in this paragraph.
Another emerging thematic area (eight papers) explores BMI enablers, which
include the elements that assist, support, and facilitate the process of BMI. The
main difference between BMI drivers and enablers is that while the former represent
necessary and/or sufficient conditions for BMI, the latter represent elements that
mainly support BMI.2 As illustrated in the thematic map (Fig. 3.7), some papers
focused on this research topic consider organizational (Hao-Chen et al. 2013;
Simmons et al. 2013) and technological (Berman et al. 2012) enablers of BMI.
2
This distinction between enablers and barriers is particularly useful if one aims at studying the
determinants of BMI by considering main effects and moderators/mediators. Other works aiming
at having an overview of the general processes of BMI can see drivers and enablers as a unique
construct that is positioned in the first part of the BMI process.
3.2 Thematic Map of BMI Literature Review 73
Others (Christensen et al. 2012) are focused on how contextual enablers (i.e.,
characteristics of the external environment) can play a facilitating role.
While still in its infancy, this research theme includes rigorous papers that
contribute to understanding the topic. The papers within this theme identify specific
enablers. For example, regarding organizational enablers, Simmons et al. (2013)
found in their analysis of industrial projects commercializing digital innovations
that the inscription of value on BMI is facilitated and enabled by marketing
activities such as market sensing and marketing channel selection. Another specific
organizational enabler of successful BMI in manufacturing SMEs is open inno-
vation, which enables internal, innovative ideas to flow outward and external ideas
to flow inward (Hao-Chen et al. 2013). In a similar vein, the exploitation of
combinations of external and internal knowledge (Denicolai et al. 2014) and
organizational design and governance competences (Carayannis et al. 2015) can
also contribute to BMI. Finally, in terms of technological enablers, research has
demonstrated that cloud computing (Berman et al. 2012), social networking sites,
and smart devices (Shin 2014) can enable BMI. So far, papers have examined
contextual enablers in a supportive multiagency operating context (Christensen
et al. 2012) and in low-income segments and emerging markets (Jain 2014). The
ontological table shows all the details about the themes emerged as enablers of BMI
(Table 3.6).
The newest thematic area, with 16 publications, focuses on the BMI process. Papers
within this theme have examined the phases of BMI, the conditions and charac-
teristics of the BMI process, imitation, and moderators (Fig. 3.8). All the papers
conceptualize BMs as dynamic and view innovation as a process.
Most publications within the theme focus on the phases of innovating BMs.
Different approaches have been used to distinguish phases in the process, such as
74 3 Business Model Innovation: A Thematic Map
Fig. 3.8 Thematic map of the BM processes of business model innovation 2010–2015
organizational (Sosna et al. 2010; Khanagha et al. 2014), innovation (Bucherer et al.
2012), and network (Palo and Tähtinen 2013). The organizational approach dis-
tinguishes the BMI phases as trial-and-error learning (exploration and exploitation)
(Sosna et al. 2010) and the strategy-making process (Khanagha et al. 2014). The
innovation approach to distinguishing BMI phases identifies phases centered on the
creation and capture of value from innovations (Dmitriev et al. 2014), the com-
mercialization of innovations (Euchner and Ganguly 2014; Leavy 2010), and
product innovation (Bucherer et al. 2012). Finally, under the network approach,
phases are divided based on business network evolution (Palo and Tähtinen 2013),
customer orientation, and value networks (Pynnönen et al. 2012). The importance
of implementing and controlling (i.e., institutionalizing) a BM (see Leavy 2010)
within an organization and the wider market is apparent in the papers.
An additional emerging stream within this thematic area is the conditions and
characteristics of the BMI process, with four publications. The conditions are
market evolution (Holloway and Sebastiao 2010), the timing and necessary char-
acteristics to perform BMI (Giesen et al. 2010), the characteristics of the BMI
process related to the distinction between the front-end and back-end of BMI
(Günzel and Holm 2013), and technological shifts (Tongur and Engwall 2014).
These conditions portray BMI as continuous refinement while shaping and being
shaped by the emergence of the market; hence, the process of BMI is connected to
the market as well as to individual and collective actions (Holloway and Sebastiao
2010; Giesen et al. 2010; Tongur and Engwall 2014).
Imitation is another sub-theme of the BMI process and refers to the final stages
or decisions in that process. Two publications acknowledge the role of imitation in
3.2 Thematic Map of BMI Literature Review 75
relation to the BMI process and outline the risks and opportunities involved in
imitation. Casadesus-Masanell and Zhu (2013) implied that companies should
consider the potential competitive effects and only then make a decision whether to
reveal or conceal the BMI. Looking at the issue from another perspective, and
Enkel and Mezger (2013) discussed cross-industry imitation through the three core
phases of abstraction, analogy identification, and adaptation in the BMI process.
In two of the publications within the BMI process theme, BMI is considered a
moderating process. BMI is a moderator between the reconfiguration of organiza-
tional culture and structure and strategic flexibility (Bock et al. 2012) and between
technology innovation and firm growth (Wei et al. 2014). In these papers, BMI is
viewed as a context and is not the actual focus of the paper; however, its role in
influencing organizational processes is important to understanding BMI. The fol-
lowing section discusses the dimensions and attributes of BMI identified across all
the papers reviewed and provides an introduction to the multilevel model of BMI
we developed based on this review. The ontological table of BMI processes
summarizes the findings related to above mentioned themes (Table 3.7).
3.3 Discussion
During our systematic literature review, we have found that the BMI concept is
used in different ways, in different contexts and disciplines, but some evolutionary
paths can be identified based on our review.
The systematic literature review detected a number of references related to the
BMI definition that is almost double to those relating to the BM (109 references for
BMI against 64 references for BM). This evidence indicates that with regard to
defining BMI, the analyzed contributions drew upon a more varied volume of
literature than the one used to define BM. Nevertheless, we have detected two main
patterns in the BMI definitions. The first pattern refers to the dynamic vision of the
BM components and the related created and captured value. The second pattern
concerns the nature and characteristics of innovation, which the BMI definition is
linked to, as explained in the preceding sections.
76 3 Business Model Innovation: A Thematic Map
In the first pattern of BMI definition (dynamic vision of the BM components and
the related value), the most cited authors are Zott and Amit (2007, 2010) and Amit
and Zott (2001) who introduced the concept of the “novelty-centered business
model” (27 papers in total). According to this perspective, BMI is viewed as a BM
design activity which can alter the way market actors conduct economic exchanges,
drive product innovation and innovate production methods and distribution. In
2010, Zott and Amit introduced a system perspective on the novelty-centered
business model, where the innovation is related to the newness of BM design
elements, such as the adoption of new activities (activity content system), new ways
of linking activities (activity-system structure) and new ways to govern activities
(activity-system governance). Other authors underlined the transformational and the
3.3 Discussion 77
development processes of BMs, such as Morris et al. (2005), Demil and Lecocq
(2010), Teece’s (2010) and Sosna et al. (2010). In particular, Morris et al. (2005)
introduced the concept of BM development, which includes the specification,
refinement, adaptation, revision, and reformulation phases of BMs. Demil and
Lecocq (2010) developed a transformational approach in studying the evolution of
80 3 Business Model Innovation: A Thematic Map
BMI drivers were the first thematic area to emerge in the BMI literature. In
accordance with our ontological analysis, this key theme includes six different
second-order themes: activities, external stakeholders, environmental factors,
organizational characteristics, service stream, and miscellaneous.
As it concerns the theme “organizational characteristics”, recently scholars are
paying increasing attention to the cognitive approach, which suggests that the
cognitive processes of managers explain BMI and its drivers. This is related to
path-dependent behaviors of firms that can cognitively constrain or foster BMI
(Bohnsack et al. 2014). As a result, we can identify a rather clear emergence of
longitudinal, in-depth case studies (Aspara et al. 2011, 2013; Demil and Lecocq
2010), that seems to be a promising research strategy as it allows scholars to capture
relevant nuances that could significantly contribute to a better understanding of
BMI.
The theme related to activities seems instead to be steered by the literature on
entrepreneurship, which has occurred both because the use of these activities (e.g.,
innovation, corporate entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial learning) is seen as an
entrepreneurial behavior itself, and because most of the firms studied by the papers
dealing with BMI operate in the high-tech sector (e.g., ICT, biotech, internet firms)
or represent entrepreneurial firms (e.g., Zott and Amit 2007).
The research on external stakeholders, in contrast, is moving from
technology-focused sectors and partnerships to other avenues and employing a
wider network perspective on BMI drivers (Gerasymenko et al. 2015; Miller et al.
2014).
Economic performance, value, industry level outcomes, and strategizing are the
primary research themes within this thematic area. These different themes under
BMI outcomes allow us to identify food for thought for future research. In par-
ticular, while real economic performance may represent the most objective way to
measure BMI outcomes, the risk is that it offers only a partial representation. In
particular, BMI may affect different economic performance indicators (e.g., profits,
productivity, returns on sales, market value) in different ways. This is why it seems
reasonable to suggest that future research includes multiple measures of real eco-
nomic performance.
With regard to perceived economic performance as an outcome of BMI, we can
acknowledge that it may offer a more complete view in that it goes beyond sec-
ondary data and usually explores the performance constructs through different
82 3 Business Model Innovation: A Thematic Map
facilitate successive BMI may be a key success factor in the future. Clearly,
research on this is needed to clarify whether some business models are more prone
to successfully renew themselves than others, and if so, how so. The few contri-
butions in this stream of research, that offered intriguing insights on BMI barriers,
were mainly practically oriented rather than theoretically.
Finally, there is a need to gather more empirical data to test and further develop
theoretically grounded models; doing so could increase the scientific critical mass
especially on how to overcome internal barriers and on how to neutralize external
ones.
Papers focused on this research topic consider internal enablers (Hao-Chen et al.
2013; Simmons et al. 2013) and external enablers (Berman et al. 2012; Christensen
et al. 2012).
Overall, these papers represent a good start; however, to offer a more complete
view of BMI, future research may need to include enablers in far more complex
frameworks (e.g., moderated mediation, multilevel analysis). This new perspective
could allow researchers to simultaneously take into account: (1) various BMI
enablers, (2) various BMI drivers (and how they are conceptually different from
enablers), and (3) various effects of enablers and drivers on BMI (e.g., extent of
BMI, whether BMI occurred or not, the success of BMI).
Papers within this thematic area have examined the phases of BMI, the conditions
and characteristics of the BMI process, imitation, and moderators.
Drawing on the above, there is a clear need for further research on the process of
business model innovation. Of the 12 publications, two are practitioner-oriented
without theoretical or empirical work (Giesen et al. 2010; Leavy 2010).
Empirically, most papers represent qualitative and illustrative case studies
(Bucherer et al. 2012; Sosna et al. 2010; Palo and Tähtinen 2013; Günzel and Holm
2013; Enkel and Mezger 2013; Pynnönen et al. 2012). Only one of the papers is
purely conceptual (Holloway and Sebastiao 2010), and one is a quantitative piece of
work (Bock et al. 2012). Overall, research on the BMI process is still in its infancy
and more work is needed in all respects. Further elaborations on the boundaries of
the business model innovation process would be valuable: such elaborations should
consider the specific activities and practices incorporating temporal issues in
addition to the matters and decisions related to the process.
84 3 Business Model Innovation: A Thematic Map
3.4 Conclusion
(continued)
Title Authors Contribution to BMI
Literature
7 Business Model Innovation Bereznoi (2015) The paper illustrates how
in Corporate Competitive corporations will triumph in
Strategy global competition because
they arm themselves with a
business innovation strategy
and have mastered the
practice of renewing business
models, that account for
dynamically changing market
demands and rapidly
developing technologies
8 Branding access offers: The Baumeister et al. This paper suggests BMI
importance of product (2015) presents a number of
brands, ownership status, and challenges for firms:
spillover effects to parent understanding (1) the
brands importance of the brand
(relative to the offer itself) in
access offers, (2) how the
parent brand affects
evaluations of the access
offer and vice versa, and
(3) how these effects can
differ across owners and
non-owners of the brand
9 Plan A’: Analysing business Morgan (2015) The paper explores how
model innovation for corporate responsibility
sustainable consumption in activities are linked to BMI
mass-market clothes
retailing*
10 Business model design Gudiksen (2015) The paper discusses: (1) the
games: Rules and procedures application of game rules,
to challenge assumptions and and (2) procedures that can
elicit surprises challenge business
assumptions and evoke
surprises, that lead to novel
insights on the business
model
11 Adapting to the sharing Matzler et al. The paper explores the ways
economy (2015) to adapt existing business
models or create a new
business model in the sharing
economy
(continued)
APPENDIX 3.1: Summaries of the Papers Analyzed … 87
(continued)
Title Authors Contribution to BMI
Literature
12 Crafting business Amit and Zott The paper introduces the
architecture: The antecedents (2015) application of central ideas
of business model design from the design literature to a
proposed process model for
business model design and
innovation. Goals, templates,
stakeholder activities, and
environmental constraints are
all considered as being
antecedents of BM design.
Four important propositions
are offered to extend the
literature on BM design for
new ventures
13 Explorative versus Osiyevskyy and The paper develops a
exploitative business model Dewald (2015) typology of incumbent
change: The cognitive adaptations to emerging
antecedents of firm-level disruptive BMIs based on
responses to disruptive two generic strategies:
innovation (1) exploratory adaption of a
disruptive business model;
and (2) exploitative
strengthening of the existing
business model. The focus is
on cognitive antecedents of
managerial intentions to
embrace each of these two
adaptation strategies within
BM disruptive innovation
14 Changing the business Gerasymenko et al. This paper suggests venture
model: Effects of venture (2015) capital firms influence the
capital firms and outside ability of young ventures to
CEOs on portfolio company change their business model.
performance The paper focuses on the
design and implementation
challenges of business
models in the context of
young ventures. A venture
capital firm having
experience of business model
change and with the
recruitment of an outside
CEO increases the positive
impact of its involvement
with a venture-
capital-backed portfolio
company
(continued)
88 3 Business Model Innovation: A Thematic Map
(continued)
Title Authors Contribution to BMI
Literature
15 Unlocking the hidden value Martins et al. The paper describes how
of concepts: A cognitive (2015) firms can proactively design
approach to BMI new, novel, and innovative
business models—an
offensive rather than
defensive strategy.
Moreover, the paper shows
how business models can be
innovated proactively in the
absence of exogenous
changes, through processes
of generative cognition
16 BMI performance: When Kim and Min The paper studies how the
does adding a new business (2015) incumbent assets and
model benefit an incumbent? managerial choices jointly
influence performance after
new business model is
introduced
17 A BMI typology Taran et al. (2015) The paper introduces four
main types of BMIs:
Open/proactive,
Closed/proactive,
Open/reactive, (Partly)
closed/reactive
18 The ludic drive as innovation Roth et al. (2015) The paper describes how
driver: Introduction to the gamification of managerial
gamification of innovation analysis and decisions drives
BMI
19 Using a “virtual joint Monios and The paper illustrates and
venture” to facilitate the Bergqvist (2015) identifies the key aspects of
adoption of intermodal an innovative BM in Supply
transport Chain Management and how
it can deliver the goals of the
partners
20 Apparel manufacturers and Dickson and Chang This paper analyzes the
the business case for social (2015) business model changes of
sustainability: ‘World class’ ‘world class’ firms for CSR
CSR and BMI activities. The authors
demonstrate that CSR
activities drives BM
adjustment. For BM
adjustment, the authors
intend that the change
regards only one element of
the business model and the
value proposition is excluded
from changes
(continued)
APPENDIX 3.1: Summaries of the Papers Analyzed … 89
(continued)
Title Authors Contribution to BMI
Literature
21 Business models, intangibles Cucculelli and The paper demonstrates how
and firm performance: Bettinelli (2015) the more innovative the BM
Evidence on corporate change, the greater are the
entrepreneurship from Italian effects on performance and
manufacturing SMEs the more robust the positive
moderation role of
intangibles becomes
22 Changing business models Lange et al. (2015) The paper explores how the
and employee representation national institutions of
in the airline industry: A market economies and a
comparison of British strong position for employee
airways and Deutsche representatives are potential
Lufthansa barriers to and influencers of
BMI
23 Modes of service innovation: Wang et al. (2015) The paper illustrates the
A typology relationship between BMI
and product/process
innovation in the service
context
24 BMI: Learning from a Pels and Kidd The paper develops a
high-tech-low-fee medical (2015) framework that expands BMI
healthcare model for the BoP literature by incorporating
environment characteristics
into BMI. Adopting a
bottom-up approach, the
authors highlight three
dimensions of BMI: the
firm-centric, the
environmental, and the
customer-centric
25 A morphological Seidenstricker and This paper introduces a
analysis-based creativity Linder (2014) method that allows the
approach to identify and systematic generation of
develop ideas for BMI: A business model ideas using
case study of a high-tech morphological thinking. This
manufacturing company tool supports the selection,
the consistency, and the
structure of those ideas
26 Toward a capability-based Mezger (2014) The paper illustrates the
conceptualization of BMI: capability-based
Insights from an explorative conceptualization of BMI, as
study a distinctive capability of
firms
27 BMI in practice Euchner and The paper explores the
Ganguly (2014) evolution of risk associated
with BMI
(continued)
90 3 Business Model Innovation: A Thematic Map
(continued)
Title Authors Contribution to BMI
Literature
28 BMI in the retail industry: Lange and This paper suggests retailers
Growth by serving the silver Velamuri (2014) can innovate their business
generation models by engaging in three
specific areas: (1) store layout
and physical environment,
(2) intensified customer
service, and (3) increasing
“senior-friendly” product
offerings. Each of these areas
incorporates changes to the
retailers’ traditional business
model
29 BMIs for information and Jain (2014) The paper discusses the
communications characteristics of BMI in
technology-based services low-income segments of
for low-income segments in emerging markets
emerging economies
30 BMI and strategic flexibility: Schneider and The paper illustrates three
Insights from an Spieth (2014) distinct types of BMI (i.e.,
experimental research design value offering innovation,
value architecture innovation,
and revenue model
innovation) and their impact
on different dimensions of
strategic flexibility (i.e.,
resource flexibility,
coordination flexibility, and
variety of managerial
capabilities)
31 Business model renewal and Khanagha et al. The paper explores the
ambidexterity: Structural (2014) adaptation of an established
alteration and strategy organization to respond to
formation process during emerging BM with disruptive
transition to a cloud business potential
model
32 Business model Cao (2014) The paper shows how
transformation in moving to a different aspects of the
cross-channel retail strategy: business model change after
A case study the retailer launches its
cross-channel strategy
33 Creating a new business Kiura et al. (2014) The paper demonstrates the
through applying the use of systems thinking and a
systems-based evolutionary systems-based methodology
learning laboratory approach to create a business model
that includes a more effective
learning cycle by engaging
different individual
stakeholders and their mental
models
(continued)
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(continued)
Title Authors Contribution to BMI
Literature
34 Creating and capturing value Denicolai et al. The paper discusses how the
from external knowledge: (2014) exploitation of novel
The moderating role of combinations of external and
knowledge intensity internal knowledge can
create and capture value in
new ways
35 Designing business models Westerlund et al. The paper discusses three
for the internet of things (2014) major challenges of
designing ecosystem
business models for the
internet, including the
diversity of objects, the
immaturity of innovation,
and the unstructured
ecosystems—a new designed
tool for “value design” of
ecosystem business models
36 From refining sugar to Short et al. (2014) The paper illustrates how
growing tomatoes bringing together a more
nuanced understanding of
industrial symbiosis with the
progress being made in the
study of sustainable business
models would serve as a
promising bridge between
symbiosis as an ecological
term and business models as
a financially related
expression
37 How small-medium Cucculelli et al. The paper demonstrates how
enterprises leverage (2014) changes in BMs are an
intangibles during recessions. important contingent factor
Evidence from the Italian that explains firm
clothing industry performance
38 Incumbents’ responses to Habtay and The paper illustrates the
disruptive BMI: The Holmén (2014) organizational responses that
moderating role of change according to the type
technology versus of innovation, such as,
market-driven innovation disruptive technology vs.
disruptive market-driven
BMI
39 Understanding the key Goyal (2014) The paper shows how to
characteristics of an develop and introduce an
embedded business model for embedded business model at
the base of the pyramid the base of the pyramid
markets (BoP) in India
(continued)
92 3 Business Model Innovation: A Thematic Map
(continued)
Title Authors Contribution to BMI
Literature
40 A six-step approach to BMI Eurich et al. (2014) Applying the principles of
networked thinking, the
paper develops a holistic and
systemic six-step approach
for BMI. This tool allows
practitioners to better
manage, structure,
communicate and evaluate
different business model
designs
41 An exploration of business Dmitriev et al. The paper introduces a model
model development in the (2014) of cyclical and interactive
commercialization of processes of BM
technology innovations development during the
commercialization of
innovations
42 Analysing barriers to Laukkanen and The paper illustrates how to
sustainable BMIs: Innovation Patala (2014) overcome the regulatory,
systems approach market and financial, and
behavioral and social barriers
that prevent BMI
43 National culture and business Dalby et al. (2014) The paper discusses how to
model change—a framework adjust a BM when expanding
for successful expansions into another cultural context
44 New business model creation Shin (2014) The paper argues that
through the triple helix of entrepreneurs, social
young entrepreneurs, SNSs, networking sites, and smart
and smart devices devices are key factors in BM
innovation for social
networking sites.
Entrepreneurial novelty
should concentrate on
combining social networking
site resources with smart
device characteristics
45 Preparing for business model Cavalcante The paper shows how
change: The “pre-stage” Cavalcante (2014) manager initiatives support
finding BM change from the earlier
stage of planning
46 Business models for Bohnsack et al. The paper illustrates the
sustainable technologies: (2014), René impact of incumbent and new
Exploring business model entrant firms’ path-dependent
evolution in the case of behaviors on the
electric vehicles development of new business
models in the electric
vehicles industry
(continued)
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(continued)
Title Authors Contribution to BMI
Literature
47 Coopetition for radical Ritala and Sainio The paper describes the effect
innovation: Technology, (2014) of coopetition on different
market and business-model types of radical innovations,
perspectives so demonstrating how
coopetition enhances BMI
and business model
radicalness
48 Articulating growth and Coblence and The paper discusses the
cultural innovation in art Sabatier (2014) impact of BMI drivers
museums: The Louvre’s identified both in the
business model revision literature (i.e., technology,
competition, environment,
customers, profitability,
architecture) and in the
context of creative industries
and cultural innovation on
BM components
49 The business model dilemma Tongur and The paper explains the
of technology shifts Engwall (2014) dynamics at the intersection
between technology and
business models.
Overcoming the technology
shift and adopting a more
market-oriented approach are
critical challenges for
innovative firms
50 The changing university Miller et al. (2014) The paper demonstrates that
business model: A BMI is a result of the
stakeholder perspective influence of multiple
stakeholders and
environmental pressures
51 Preparing for business model Cavalcante The paper addresses the
change: The “pre-stage” Cavalcante (2014) “pre-stage” activity of
finding potential business model
change, characterized by
processes of experimenting
and learning. These processes
can subsequently trigger
actual business model change
52 Proposal of an innovative Pourabdollahian The paper proposes an
business model for and Copani (2014) innovative business model to
customized production in support hospitals seeking
healthcare customized production in
healthcare
(continued)
94 3 Business Model Innovation: A Thematic Map
(continued)
Title Authors Contribution to BMI
Literature
53 The fit between technological Wei et al. (2014) The paper illustrates how the
innovation and business novelty-centered business
model design for firm model design moderates the
growth: Evidence from China relationship between
technology innovation and
firm growth
54 Apple’s changing business Lazonick et al. In reporting the story of
model: What should the (2013) Apple Corporation, the paper
world’s richest company do underlines the changes in the
with all those profits? business model (defined as
the interaction of strategy,
organization, and finance)
and the consequences for
firm innovativeness and
performance
55 BMI: Propositions on the Andries and The paper explores the effect
appropriateness of different Debackere (2013) of learning processes on BM
learning approaches renewal/improvement
56 Applications of the business Lambert and The paper discusses studies
model in studies of enterprise Davidson (2013) on BMI and illustrates the
success, innovation and enablers and drivers of BMI
classification: An analysis of
empirical research from 1996
to 2010
57 Corporate business model Aspara et al. (2013) The paper introduces
transformation and managerial cognitive
inter-organizational processes as the main driver
cognition: The case of Nokia of corporate business model
transformations
58 Simultaneous Andries et al. The paper suggests distant
experimentation as a learning (2013) search and simultaneous
strategy: Business model experimentation lead to
development under variety in business models
uncertainty
59 BMI: What can the Markides (2013) In line with the ambidexterity
ambidexterity literature teach literature, the paper discusses
us? the solutions to manage dual
BMs (separation of units that
have implemented BMI from
those that have retained
traditional BMs)
60 BMI for sustainable energy: Richter (2013) The paper proposes that
German utilities and managing the innovative
renewable energy venture with a new business
model in a separate unit of
the corporation, is an optimal
strategy to manage BMI
(continued)
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Title Authors Contribution to BMI
Literature
61 Overcoming organizational Hao-Chen et al. The paper explores how open
inertia to strengthen BMI (2013) innovation enables the
change of organizational
inertia to create BMI and
improve firm performance
62 From service for free to Witell and Löfgren The paper discusses how
service for fee: BMI in (2013) strategies related to either
manufacturing firms incremental or radical BMI
can be used to make a
successful transition from
service for free to service for
fee
63 A two-tier business model Huarng (2013) This study proposes a
and its realization for two-tier business model
entrepreneurship (consisting of a conceptual
model and a financial model)
useful for entrepreneurs
creating a new business
64 BMI for sustainability Girotra and The paper introduces a
Netessine (2013) pedagogical tool to identify
new sustainable business
models
65 Tools for managing Evans and Johnson The paper illustrates a
early-stage BMI (2013) two-stage approach
(risk-return and innovation
readiness levels) to assess the
potential of early-stage ideas
that require business model
shifts toward radical
innovation
66 Customer knowledge Wu et al. (2013) The paper demonstrates how
management and IT-enabled technology enables the
BMI: A conceptual customer knowledge that
framework and a case study drives BMI
from China
67 Business modeling for Liu and Jiang The paper addresses BM
entrepreneurial firms: Four (2013) design and how different
cases in China designs affect firms’
competitive advantage in
China
68 The role of top managers’ Guo et al. (2013) Adopting a value network
human and social capital in perspective, the paper
BMI discusses how individual
characteristics of managers
(human and social capital)
influence BMI
(continued)
96 3 Business Model Innovation: A Thematic Map
(continued)
Title Authors Contribution to BMI
Literature
69 Understanding the impact of Cavalcante (2013) The paper demonstrates how
technology on firms’ a new technology affects a
business models firm’s BM and its innovation
activities. Four different
types of business model
change (business model
creation, extension, revision,
and termination) are
discussed
70 A service science perspective Maglio and This paper is the first attempt
on BMI Spohrer (2013) to illustrate how the service
dominant logic can accelerate
BMI
71 Solution business models: Storbacka et al. The paper originates the
Transformation along four (2013) concept of “solution business
continua model continua,” where firms
change their BMs and
address opportunities and
challenges
72 Outcome-based contracts as Ng et al. (2013) The paper illustrates the role
new business model: The role of partnership and
of partnership and value-driven relational assets
value-driven relational assets in achieving new
outcome-based contracts
BMs
73 Inscribing value on BMIs: Simmons et al. The paper demonstrates how
Insights from industrial (2013) the value inscription
projects commercializing supported by marketing
disruptive digital innovations activities contributes to BMI
74 Networked business model Palo and Tähtinen The paper introduces and
development for emerging (2013) explains the BMI process
technology-based services consisting of business net and
opportunity development
phases
75 BMI in India Velu and Khanna The paper contributes to
(2013) understanding BMI based on
industries, firm types, and the
newness of innovation
76 Service orientation: Nair et al. (2013) The paper reveals and
Effectuating BMI discusses the relationship
between service orientation
and BMI
77 The innovation bottom line Kiron et al. (2013a) The paper explores how firms
are changing their BMs in
response to sustainability
(continued)
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(continued)
Title Authors Contribution to BMI
Literature
78 BMI and competitive Casadesus The paper examines the
imitation: The case of Brea-Solís et al. decision to conceal a new
sponsor-based business (2015) BM from the market or to
models reveal it is driven by the
competitive reactions that can
act as drivers and/or barriers
to BMI
79 Will BMI replace strategic Abraham (2013) The paper illustrates the
analysis? differences between BMI and
strategic analysis
80 BMIs for electric mobility— Abdelkafi et al. The paper discusses the
What can be learned from (2013) generation of BMI in the
existing business model electric mobility sector by
patterns? transferring BM patterns
across different industries
81 BMI and third-party alliance Velu and Khanna The paper shows that new
on the survival of new firms (2013) firms with a high or low
extent of BMI are more likely
to survive for longer than
new firms with a moderate
extent of BMI
82 BMI: Towards an integrated Schneider and Literature review on BMI
future research agenda Spieth (2013)
83 One size does not fit all— Günzel and Holm The paper contributes to
Understanding the front-end (2013) understanding the BMI
and back-end of BMI processes in incumbent firms
faced with a disruptive
technology. Learning
activities can help distinguish
between front-end and
back-end processes of BMI
84 Business model road De Reuver et al. The paper introduces a BM
mapping: A practical (2013) road mapping process,
approach to come from an defining the steps and choices
existing to a desired business in transitioning from an old
model to a new BM
85 Imitation processes and their Enkel and Mezger The paper illustrates a
application for BMI: An (2013) framework of cross-industry
explorative study process for BMI
86 Product service systems as a Velamuri et al. The paper shows how by
driver for BMI: Lessons (2013) integrating specific services
learned from the with products firms can
manufacturing industry develop BMI
87 Profiting from BMI: Desyllas and Sako The paper introduces
Evidence from (2013) business method patenting as
pay-as-you-drive auto a way to capture value from
insurance BMI
(continued)
98 3 Business Model Innovation: A Thematic Map
(continued)
Title Authors Contribution to BMI
Literature
88 The social embeddedness of Spector (2013) This paper suggests
business model enactment investments in social capital
become salient when BMI
changes organizational
boundaries through
insourcing and outsourcing
activities
89 The benefits of Kiron et al. (2013b) The paper explores how BMI
sustainability-driven can transform sustainability
innovation in a profitable business
90 Target costing, BMI, and Huang et al. (2012) The paper discusses the effect
firm performance: An of target costing systems on
empirical analysis of Chinese BMI and the moderating role
firms of cross-functional teams
91 BMI in entrepreneurship Trimi and The paper discusses the role
Berbegal-Mirabent and practices of BM design
(2012) for entrepreneurs
92 Impact of knowledge Nair et al. (2012) According to this paper, the
brokering on performance more the knowledge-based
heterogeneity among resource accumulation of the
business models BM is spread, the more the
BM is exposed to the
generated ideas and the better
is the performance of the BM
93 Business model changes and Mokhlesian and The paper illustrates how a
green construction processes Holmén (2012) green construction (e.g.,
sustainable construction)
changes BM elements, and
how these elements are
related to each other
94 A firm-level analysis on the Habtay (2012) The paper explores the
relative difference between typology of
technology-driven and technology-driven and
market-driven disruptive market-driven BMI, and
BMIs identifies factors that inhibit
or enable disruptive BMI
95 Can innovative business Christensen et al. The paper illustrates the
models overcome resistance (2012) conditions required for BMI
to electric vehicles? Better to overcome resistance in the
place and battery electric cars electric car mobility field
in Denmark
96 Emerging business models Ghezzi et al. (2010) The paper introduces the
and strategies for mobile “BM design reference
platform providers: a framework” to develop BMI
reference framework for mobile platform providers
(continued)
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(continued)
Title Authors Contribution to BMI
Literature
97 Does method matter? An Eppler and The paper demonstrates how
experiment on collaborative Hoffmann (2012) artifacts (visual templates,
business model idea physical objects) have the
generation in teams power to shape the group
process of developing new
BMs
98 Managing customer-driven Pynnönen et al. The paper introduces a
BMI (2012) framework for customer-
driven BMI. The paper also
discusses tools to implement
and manage such BMI
99 How cloud computing Berman et al. The paper shows how firms
enables process and BMI (2012) can use cloud technology to
impact company and industry
value chains, and also the
customer value propositions
100 Towards systematic BMI: Bucherer et al. The paper discusses the
Lessons from product (2012) similarities and differences
innovation management between BMI and product
innovation
101 Improving the performance Brettel et al. (2012) The paper demonstrates how
of business models with the performance of
relationship marketing efforts efficiency-centered business
—An entrepreneurial models increases with greater
perspective marketing efforts while the
performance of
novelty-centered business
models increases with a
lesser degree of such
marketing effort
102 Creating value through BMI Amit and Zott The paper introduces a
(2012) system-based BMI definition
and identifies different types
of BMI and processes,
suggesting questions to be
considered during the
development of BMI
103 The effects of culture and Bock et al. (2012) Using BMI as a context, the
structure on strategic paper demonstrates the
flexibility during BMI relationship between the
strategic flexibility and firm
performances, with BMI
effort as a moderator. It
suggests that if firms focus
their innovation efforts on
business models, the negative
effect of reconfiguration on
the probability of achieving
strategic flexibility will be
reduced
(continued)
100 3 Business Model Innovation: A Thematic Map
(continued)
Title Authors Contribution to BMI
Literature
104 How to identify new business Sinfield et al. This paper introduces
models (2012) business model
experimentation as a way to
use experiments to examine
new business model
possibilities
105 Business model dynamics Cavalcante et al. The paper discusses the
and innovation: (Re) (2011) process-based
establishing the missing conceptualization of BMI
linkages with the related challenges
and drivers. Different types
of BM changes are also
considered
106 Innovations in retail business Sorescu et al. Adopting a conceptual point
models (2011) of view, this paper illustrates
BMI in retailing, the design
components involved,
possible outcomes, and
drivers
107 Accelerating corporate Engel (2011) The paper proposes BMI
innovation: Lessons from the used alongside technology
venture capital model can assist chief technology
officers to generate disruptive
innovations
108 The three faces of BMI: Koen et al. (2011) The paper illustrates the
Challenges for established barriers to BMI (e.g., risks of
firms building a value network, and
the financial hurdle rate).
This work also proposes a
classification of BMI
109 Strategic management of Aspara et al. (2011) Adapting cognitive theory to
business model BMI, the paper discusses
transformation: lessons from how BMI is driven by
Nokia corporate level market
mechanisms that allow
cognitive exchanges and
build on existing capabilities
110 The art of rapid, hands-on Tuulenmäki and The paper explores how BMI
execution innovation Välikangas (2011) can be successfully employed
with a high-speed
experimentation approach
111 The role of BMI in the Holloway and This paper sets out and
emergence of markets: A Sebastiao (2010) discusses BMI processes
missing dimension of
entrepreneurial strategy?
(continued)
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(continued)
Title Authors Contribution to BMI
Literature
112 Breakthrough innovation Koen et al. (2010) The paper explores the five
dilemmas key dilemmas that large firms
face in pursuing BMI
113 A system for innovating Leavy (2010) The paper explains the
business models for process-steps determining
breakaway growth how to develop an innovative
business model
114 BMI and sources of value Sanchez and Ricart This work illustrates the
creation in low-income (2010) factors influencing BMI in
markets low-income markets
115 A framework for analyzing Lee and Ho (2010) The paper explains how to
BMI in mobile commerce develop business models in
mobile commerce with an
analysis of the key elements,
the costs, the revenues and
the growth components and
the context effects
116 Business model replication Dunford et al. The paper illustrates the BMI
for early and rapid (2010) emergence and evolution
internationalisation: The ING processes in early and rapid
direct experience internationalization
117 From single firm to Lindgren et al. The paper illustrates how
network-based BMI (2010) new business models can
evolve through networks,
discussing the challenges and
emerging issues
118 Value co-creation in business Ho et al. (2010) This work is about the
models: Evidence from three dynamics and mechanisms of
cases analysis in Taiwan new BM designs as source of
corporate innovation, and
competitiveness
119 When and how to innovate Giesen et al. (2010) The paper proposes and
your business model discusses the best timing and
processes to develop BMI,
enlightening the related key
success factors
120 Business model design: An Zott and Amit This paper illustrates the BM
activity system perspective (2010) design elements and BM
design themes, where BMI is
one of the themes of BM
design
121 Business model evolution: In Demil and Lecocq The paper discusses BMI as
search of dynamic (2010) the interaction between BM
consistency components and dynamic
consistency (i.e., a capability
to increase performance
during the process of BMI)
(continued)
102 3 Business Model Innovation: A Thematic Map
(continued)
Title Authors Contribution to BMI
Literature
122 Business-model innovation: Gambardella and The paper explores how BMI
General purpose technologies McGahan (2010) and industry structural
and their implications for changes are driven by general
industry structure purpose technologies and the
possible consequences at firm
and sector levels
123 Building social business Yunus et al. (2010) The paper illustrates the
models: Lessons from the lessons learned from the
Grameen experience development of the social
business model and
highlights similarities with
BMI
124 BMI: Opportunities and Chesbrough (2010) This work explores the
barriers barriers to BMI, such as
conflicts with existing assets
and business models, and the
role of cognition in
understanding these barriers.
The paper provides the
possible solutions and
examples
125 Embedding strategic agility: Doz and Kosonen The paper explains the
A leadership agenda for (2010) concrete leadership actions
accelerating business model that enable the
renewal meta-capabilities needed to
accelerate the renewal and
transformation of business
models
126 BMI through trial-and-error Sosna et al. (2010) This work addresses the BMI
learning: The Naturhouse drivers and processes
case focusing on trial and error. It
suggests the aim should be to
learn from firms that are
developing new retail-market
business models
127 An individual business model Svejenova et al. The paper analyses the BMI
in the making: A chef’s quest (2010) developed by chef and
for creative freedom gastronomic innovator Ferran
Adria. The work discusses
the triggers, mechanisms, and
changes related to this
particular form of BMI
(continued)
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(continued)
Title Authors Contribution to BMI
Literature
128 How do latecomer firms Wu et al. (2010) The paper illustrates that
capture value from disruptive firms operating in developing
technologies? A secondary countries can create
business-model innovation secondary BMI owing to
perspective their knowledge of local
customers. Consequently,
those firms can devote more
resources than some of their
competitors to marketing
their BM, as they do not need
to develop a new strategy
129 Strategy and business model Ghezzi et al. (2010) This paper proposes a
design in dynamic framework (a tool) that
telecommunications identifies drivers of
industries: A study on Italian potentially disruptive change
mobile network operators and their implications for the
BM designs of Italian mobile
network operators. The
proposed framework helps to
relate disruptive change
factors to business model
dimensions, aimed to
develop emergent strategies
130 BMI versus replication: Aspara et al. (2010) The paper explores how the
Financial performance strategic emphasis on BMI
implications of strategic and on the replication of a
emphases new BM can impact financial
performance
131 Technology Björkdahl (2009) This paper addresses
cross-fertilization and the technology
business model: The case of cross-fertilization, which
integrating ICTs in needs to be accompanied by
mechanical engineering business model changes to
products achieve increased economic
value performance in terms
of profitable growth. The
relationship changes are
accentuated differently
depending on the dimension
of the firm
(continued)
104 3 Business Model Innovation: A Thematic Map
(continued)
Title Authors Contribution to BMI
Literature
132 A new business model for Birkin et al. (2009) The paper demonstrates that
sustainable development: An if it is to be successful, any
exploratory study using the new business model for
theory of constraints in sustainable development has
Nordic organizations to work more on societal and
value issues than on technical
and managerial ones. The
paper also discusses the
constraints affecting any
other new business model,
such as, time, problems with
the ‘market model’,
recognizing a ‘good cause’
independently of cost
considerations, vested
interests, excess
specialization at the level of
individual knowledge,
bureaucracy within firms,
over-consumption, lack of an
appreciation of nature,
inequitable societies, and
societies lacking the
mechanisms and attitudes to
achieve consensus
133 Integrating product and Shelton (2009) This paper discusses how a
service innovation deep knowledge of customer
needs and its subsequent
integration into an
organization, together with
partnerships outside the firm,
can form the basis of a shift
from a product-focused BM
to a product and
service-focused BM
134 Disruptive innovation in Hwang and The paper illustrates how to
health care delivery: A Christensen (2008) create BMI, disruptive
framework for technological innovation has
business-model innovation to be integrated in the
different types of BMs
(solution shops,
organizational processes and
network) typically used in the
health industry
(continued)
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(continued)
Title Authors Contribution to BMI
Literature
135 A business model for IPTV Bouwman et al. The paper considers the
service: A dynamic (2008) external forces that influence
framework the choices involved in the
business model for IPTV
(digital television). Forces
cited include the technology
driving IPTV BMs and the
market dynamics and
regulatory conditions. These
elements are considered to
develop a scenario analysis
able to assist firms in
choosing the right BMI
136 Business models for Eriksson et al. The paper explores the
M-services: Exploring the (2008) implications of consumer
E-newspaper case from a points of view on developing
consumer view new business models
137 Entrepreneurial learning in Sanz-Velasco and The paper discusses two
academic spin-offs: A Saemundsson main learning behaviors
business model perspective (2008) (based on experience and
based on external relations),
capable of driving essential
BM changes. In the
meanwhile, the paper
explores how environment
affects the two learning
behaviors
138 BMI: it’s not just about Chesbrough (2007) The paper describes how all
technology anymore firms need to continuously
innovate their BM. Tests are
a way to verify if a new BM
is likely to be successful.
Leadership, internal
cooperation, separate
organizational resources and
customer perspectives are
components of this BMI test
139 Three ways to successfully Giesen et al. (2007) The paper discusses how,
innovate your business model firms need three types (or
combinations) of BMI, which
are related to: industry,
revenue, enterprise models
and networking lead to
deliver successful financial
results
(continued)
106 3 Business Model Innovation: A Thematic Map
(continued)
Title Authors Contribution to BMI
Literature
140 Business model design and Zott and Amit The paper describes the
the performance of (2007) design of new
entrepreneurial firms boundary-spanning
organizational forms.
Business model design (not
the action of designing but
the type of BM, termed BM
themes) affects the
performance of firms with the
environment exerting a
moderating effect. The
authors demonstrate that the
novelty-centered business
model design affects the
performance of
entrepreneurial firms
141 Innovating business models Chesbrough and This paper illustrates how to
with co-development Schwartz (2007) create BMI through
partnerships co-development partnerships,
which can improve
innovation effectiveness
142 IBM’s global CEO report Pohle and The paper illustrates how
2006: BMI matters Chapman (2006) BMI has become one of the
most important priorities for
CEOs. Strategic partnerships
and organization structure
changes topped the list of
most significant BMIs. The
outcomes are related to cost
reductions and strategic
flexibility
143 Drawing emerging business Vlachos et al. The paper proposes a
models for the mobile music (2006) methodology based on an
industry alternative business model
that helps configure a
business model change
144 The new customer-centred Kandampully The authors propose a
business model for the (2006) framework to support firms
hospitality industry in the hospitality industry to
innovate their BM (by
becoming customer-centered
and service-oriented) and
thus to achieve market
leadership and profitability.
The framework comprises:
(1) efficiencies through
service unbundling,
(2) creative usage of
technology and, (3) external
orientation and internal
coordination
(continued)
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(continued)
Title Authors Contribution to BMI
Literature
145 The changing digital content Swatman et al. The paper provides an
landscape: An evaluation of (2006) overview and assessment of
e-business model the best internet-based
development in European business models in the media
online news and music and music industries
146 Different leadership skills for Deschamps (2005) The paper discusses how
different innovation strategies leadership forms and skills
drive BMI: top-down forms
of leadership and pragmatic
skills help in creating
external collaborations,
which are essential to drive
BMI
147 Skills brokerage: A new Papagiannidis and The authors present a new
model for business start-ups Li (2005) business model for start-ups
in the networked economy
148 Responsible innovation Buhman et al. The paper explains how BMI
toward sustainable (2005) is a less expensive resource
development in small and than technological innovation
medium-sized enterprises: A for responsible innovation in
resource perspective SMEs
149 Technology Pateli and Giaglis The paper develops a
innovation-induced business (2005) scenario planning tool to
model change: A define the changes in BM and
contingency approach the contingency factors that
help managers assess the best
form of BMI for the company
150 Strategic frontiers: The Bate and Johnston The paper proposes a
starting-point for innovative (2005) managerial method to find
growth strategic frontiers that can
change the BM of the
company. Defining,
exploring, and discovering
the value of the strategic
frontiers are elements of this
practice
151 Networked enterprise: A new Chung et al. (2004) The paper proposes that
business model for global networked enterprises for
sourcing global sourcing can spur BMI
for firms
152 E-service innovations Michalski (2003) The paper discusses how in
through corporate the business of industrial
entrepreneurship e-services (global technology
firms) firms can develop BMI
through the application of
corporate entrepreneurship
principles (e.g.,
entrepreneurship and
corporate venturing)
(continued)
108 3 Business Model Innovation: A Thematic Map
(continued)
Title Authors Contribution to BMI
Literature
153 The role of the business Chesbrough and The business model unlocks
model in capturing value Rosenbloom latent value from a
from innovation: Evidence (2002) technology, but its logic
from Xerox Corporation’s constrains the subsequent
technology spin-off firms search for new and
alternative models for other
technologies. This is an
implicit cognitive dimension
overlooked in most discourse
on the topic
154 Enabling knowledge Malhotra (2002) The paper explores BMI in
exchanges for e-business the e-business context,
communities highlighting the role of
knowledge management
(KM) and the importance of
balancing KM in BM design
and KM to the emergence of
BMs
155 E-business model design, Dubosson-Torbay The paper proposes the
classification, and et al. (2002) degree of innovation in a BM
measurements is an element that contributes
to defining the BM in the
e-business context
156 Five business-model myths Linder and Cantrell The paper illustrates the
that hold firms back (2001) myths around BM and how
they jeopardize firm
competitiveness
a
The period of interest was 2001–2015. But we manually added a relevant paper published in 2017
by Foss and Saebi as it makes an important contribution to the topic
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Chapter 4
Multilevel Analysis of Business Model
Innovation
Abstract This chapter introduces a multilevel analysis of BMI that flows from the
thematic and ontological analyses of the 156 papers included in the systematic
literature review. Five different levels of analysis emerged from the studies: indi-
vidual (e.g., entrepreneurs and employees); team (e.g., top management); firm (e.g.
companies and organizations), network (e.g., partnerships and consortia), and the
firm’s institutional environment (e.g., industry, market, sector, or society). These
levels of analysis are discussed in order to improve our understanding of BMI and
to stimulate future research. The tables and the multilevel issues examined in this
chapter reveal that most existing knowledge on BMI is concentrated on a single
level of analysis at a time, moreover the majority of the papers use the firm as the
level of investigation. Accordingly, this chapter contributes to the development of
the BMI literature, highlighting for each level of analysis, the related research gaps,
and offering specific suggestions—a road map for future research—to address each
of these knowledge gaps.
4.1 Introduction
This section synthesizes the findings of our systematic literature review, showing
how we can delineate different patterns for BMI by levels of analysis (i.e. indi-
vidual, team, firm, network, and institutional).
According to the previous chapters of this book (Chaps. 2 and 3), we adopt the
BMI definition proposed by Foss and Saebi (2017), BMI is conceptualized as
“designed, novel, and non-trivial changes to the key elements of a firm’s business
model and/or the architecture linking these elements”. Typically, these actions are
influenced and implemented by actors at different levels of analysis: (1) individual
(e.g., entrepreneurs, employees); (2) team (e.g., top management); (3) firm (e.g.,
companies, organizations) (4) network (e.g., partnerships, consortia), and (5) the
firm’s institutional environment (e.g., industry, market, sector, or society). This is
why many managerial disciplines have begun to study the BM as a unit of analysis,
which is distinct from, and at the same time involves, the firm, industry, or network
(Zott et al. 2011).
Our review therefore reveals not only that BMI literature focuses on one level of
analysis at a time but that this choice of level of analysis is typically accompanied
by a reliance on different angles, making the integration and accumulation of
findings difficult.
Of the 156 papers analyzed for the systematic literature review, the objective of this
book, we could place 132 of them into the various cells representing different levels
of analysis (Table 4.1). We have identified five levels of analysis that have been the
main focus of the analyzed papers: the individual, team, firm, network, and insti-
tutional levels.
The field of BMI involves multiple levels of analysis, which are necessary to
understand the dynamics within organizations because people do not act in isola-
tion. In other words, individuals (e.g., entrepreneurs, employees, owners) influence
their environment (e.g., the teams, networks, firms, and context they belong to) and
are also influenced by their environment.
At the individual level of analysis, research typically involves the study of
learning, perception, creativity, cognition, motivation, personality, cooperative
behavior, deviant behavior, and ethics; at this level of analysis, the focus usually
draws heavily upon psychology and entrepreneurship theories (Ostroff and Judge
2012).
At the team level of analysis, research involves the study of group dynamics,
intra- and intergroup conflict and cohesion, leadership, roles, power, norms, and
interpersonal communication (e.g., Molloy et al. 2010). At this level of analysis,
scholars usually use sociological and socio-psychological approaches.
At the firm level of analysis, research involves the study of topics such as firm
culture, firm structure, cultural diversity, inter-organizational cooperation and
conflict, change, technology, and external environmental forces (Foss and Saebi
2015). At this level of analysis, BMI research usually draws upon strategic man-
agement, entrepreneurship, and organizational behavior theories.
At the network level of analysis research in general includes social interaction
(of individuals acting on behalf of their organizations), relationships, collective
action, connectedness, cooperation, collaboration, and trust. By network we mean
“a set of nodes and the set of ties representing some relationship, or lack of rela-
tionship, between the nodes.” We would also point out that the content of the
relationships between nodes is “limited only by a researcher’s imagination” (Brass
et al. 2004, p. 795).
At the institutional level of analysis, research typically addresses at least one of
Scott’s (1995) three pillars of institutions: the regulative, normative, and
cultural-cognitive. The regulative pillar deals with explicit regulatory processes—
4.2 Multilevel Analysis of Business Model Innovation 119
rule-setting, monitoring, and sanctioning activities that force firms to comply with
the rules for reasons of expediency—and the enforcing body. The normative pillar
emphasizes norms and values with which actors comply due to a feeling of social
obligation and social expectations. The cultural-cognitive pillar focuses on how
individuals respond to stimuli from the environment’s culture and on shared
understanding.
Table 4.1 categorizes the papers analyzed according to the levels of analysis
adopted. Not surprisingly, the preferred level of analysis for papers analyzing BMI is
the firm, with a total of 91 papers. Overall, the individual level has been applied by 17
papers while the network level of analysis and the institutional one have each been
used in 11 papers. Finally, the level of analysis least often adopted is the team one.
mechanisms from individuals to the organization and vice versa (Sosna et al. 2010).
Finally, a recent stream of research has studied the use of systems thinking and the
importance of learning cycles that engage different individual stakeholders and their
mental models (Kiura et al. 2014).
Again, using the individual unit of analysis, some interesting new patterns have
appeared in the recent literature. Specifically, we witnessed the emergence of the
concept of individual business model innovation that describes sets of activities,
organizing, and strategic resources that individuals employ to pursue their interests
and motivations, and to create and capture value in the process (Svejenova et al.
2010, p. 409). In addition, scholars have examined the possible implications of
consumer views on developing new BMs (Eriksson et al. 2008).
Table 4.2 synthesizes the main studies on the individual level of analysis, and
reveals how research on managers is mainly focused on psychological aspects;
those focused on entrepreneurs and top managers are related to decisions and
behaviors (such as experimentation, decisions/actions, and innovative initiatives);
finally works focused on the individual level mainly concern learning and knowl-
edge aspects (i.e. learning processes and cycles, learning behaviors, and knowledge
transfer).
Very few papers (2) adopt the team as a main level of analysis. The first one (Eppler
and Hoffmann 2012) considers how effective divergent and convergent group
processes lead to BMI. The authors frame their contribution in the growing body of
literature on artifacts (such as visual templates, physical objects, and sketches) and
show that they can support collaboration, creativity, and innovation in teams.
Specifically, the authors show that artifacts have an impact on perceived group
collaboration, perceived creativity, and the decision to adopt a BMI idea. Their
theorizing was tested with an experiment with managers who were asked to develop
BMI using different types of artifacts. The results show that team level features such
as collaboration increase with the use of digital visual business model templates,
and that this artifact decreases creativity and willingness to adopt the BMI idea
generated (Eppler and Hoffmann 2012).
Another interesting contribution is that by Doz and Kosonen (2010). In this case
the authors describe strategic agility (i.e., the capability of developing BMI) as the
interplay on the part of top management among three ‘meta-capabilities’: strategic
sensitivity, leadership unity, and resource fluidity. All these three capabilities lie at
the top management team level and Doz and Kosonen propose a repertoire of
actions enabling them to facilitate the renewal and transformation of BMs (Doz and
Kosonen 2010).
Interestingly the idea that emerges from the papers using the team level of
analysis is that BMI is the result of a collective process and requires coordinated
actions especially at the upper echelon. Considering the promising ideas that
emerged in these two papers, we feel we can suggest that more research is needed
on this side. Table 4.3 illustrates BMI at the team level of analysis.
The largest proportion of the papers in this analysis (91) study BMI by considering
the firm level of analysis. This does not mean that other levels have been utterly
overlooked by these papers, in many cases other levels are mentioned but the major
focus and unit of concern remains the organization/firm. Scholars adopting the firm
as the main level of analysis, have observed various aspects.
A first group has observed firm-level behaviors that occur in BMI such as
incumbent and new entrant firms’ path-dependent behaviors (Bohnsack et al. 2014);
firm distant search and simultaneous experimentation (Andries et al. 2013); firms
using experiments to examine in advance new BM options (Sinfield et al. 2012);
and firm knowledge-based resource accumulation (Nair et al. 2012). Others have
simply analyzed BMI by considering the firm as the main actor: some have
observed how companies change their BMs in response to demands for sustain-
ability (Kiron et al. 2013b) and how they profit from sustainability through BMI
(Kiron et al. 2013a). Others have studied BMI at particular moments in the firms
under investigation: BMI during early and rapid firm internationalization (Dunford
et al. 2010); BMI during firm commercialization of innovations (Dmitriev et al.
2014); and BMI when the firm expanded into another cultural context (Dalby et al.
2014). Finally some scholars have considered firm strategy in general in an attempt
to reveal how a firm’s strategic emphasis on BMI and on replication of a new BM
affect financial performance (Aspara et al. 2010). Related to this, some have
focused on the role of the firm’s capabilities in and for BMI representing dynamic
consistency as a capability to increase performance during BMI (Demil and Lecocq
2010) and illustrating the capability-based conceptualization of business model
innovation, as a distinct capability of firms (Mezger 2014).
A second group of researchers has considered firm-level strategies and solutions
for BMI, and/or during BMI such as the organizational separation of units
(Markides 2013); the use of technology to foster the customer knowledge that
drives BMI (Wu et al. 2013; Tongur and Engwall 2014); and the implementation of
a firm-level service dominant logic to accelerate BMI (Maglio and Spohrer 2013).
Others have studied solution business model continua where firms change their
BMs and face opportunities and challenges (Storbacka et al. 2013); the role of
firm-level partnership and value-driven relational assets in achieving BMI (Ng et al.
2013); and firm value inscription supported by marketing activities that contributes
to BMI (Simmons et al. 2013). Among the solutions that firms can implement
during and in support of BMI, scholars have also considered firm business model
patenting as a way to capture value from BMI (Desyllas and Sako 2013); firm
marketing efforts (Brettel et al. 2012); the exploitation of novel combinations of
firm external and internal knowledge to create and capture value in new ways
(Denicolai et al. 2014); and the joint influence of firm incumbent assets and man-
agerial choices (Kim and Min 2015).
An important stream of research has shed light on firm-level design activities:
design of new boundary-spanning organizational forms and how novelty-centered
124 4 Multilevel Analysis of Business Model Innovation
business model design affects the performance of entrepreneurial firms (Zott and
Amit 2007); BM design antecedents (Amit and Zott 2015); and young ventures
design and implementation challenges related to BM (Gerasymenko et al. 2015).
Again, in this stream researchers have studied how firms can proactively design
new, novel, and innovative BMs through processes of generative cognition (Martins
et al. 2015); the role that organizational design, governance, and different stake-
holders (e.g., customers, clients) have in the BMI process (Carayannis et al. 2015);
and how the novelty-centered business model design moderates the relationship
between technology innovation and firm growth (Wei et al. 2014). Table 4.4
visually synthesizes all the firm-level actions considered when studying BMI, these
are categorized based on how they have been interpreted by the various authors
(e.g., as behaviors, as solutions, as strategies etc.).
The group of papers adopting the network as the main unit of analysis all have
something in common; they consider networks as drivers, contexts, and or facili-
tators of BMI.
In particular, Palo and Tähtinen (2013) explore the interesting issues related to
the development of a networked business model for emerging technology-based
services, while Chung and colleagues explore how a networked enterprise for
global sourcing generated BMI (Chung et al. 2004). Other examples include the
paper by Lindgren and colleagues explaining the development of new BMs through
networks considering the related challenges and emerging issues (Lindgren et al.
2010). Similarly Cavalcante’s work explores how companies can use a technology
platform with partner companies in a consortium to extend their existing business
models (Cavalcante 2013) while Chesbrough and Schwartz study how to establish
BMI through co-development partnerships, which can improve innovation effec-
tiveness (Chesbrough and Schwartz 2007; Monios and Bergqvist 2015).
Others have focused on new issues related to BMI and networks such as social
networking sites-based BM innovation (Shin 2014), or the challenges of BMI in the
emerging context of the Internet of Things (IOT) (Westerlund et al. 2014), the
development of Social Business (Yunus et al. 2010), or the consequences of BMI
for investments in social capital and on organizational boundaries (Spector 2013).
To sum up, networks are identified as a key element of BMI and the literature is
starting to emphasize their roles and positions as proactive units in the processes
that lead to BMI. The papers analyzed reveal that research that uses the network as
a unit of analysis still tends to examine the network through one or a few firm
members, usually the hub firm or the founding members of the network. It is
interesting to note however that among more recent papers are a number that try to
go beyond this and consider other (if not all) actors in the business net (e.g., Palo
and Tähtinen 2013). We believe this approach is as important as the type of unit of
4.6 Papers on BMI at the Network Level of Analysis 125
analysis, because a number of actors construct a business net and the processes of
BMI are surely affected by the variety of expectations, needs, and motivations of
each and all of them. A brief summary is offered in Table 4.5.
structural changes are driven by general purpose technologies and the possible
consequences at the firm and sector level (Gambardella and McGahan 2010). Here
the units of analysis are two (firm and sector/institution) but our interpretation
suggests that the sector is the main focus of the research. This paper represents a
first attempt to produce an analysis of BMI considering the institutional level, and
given the dearth of studies at this level of analysis and the importance of contextual
influences for BMI, we hope to encourage more research at this level.
Finally, another important stream of research has dealt with external pressures
toward sustainability. We cite for example Birkin and colleagues according to
which successful BMI needs to take into account societal and value issues in
addition to technical and managerial ones (Birkin et al. 2009). A brief summary is
offered in Table 4.6.
4.8 Conclusion
Our multilevel BMI model outlined above is useful for summarizing and inter-
preting the literature. This section integrates existing knowledge about BMI across
perspectives and levels of analysis. Table 4.1 categorizes the analyzed papers
according to their main perspectives and levels of analysis. We identified five
perspectives: strategic management, organizational studies, marketing,
practice-oriented, and entrepreneurship and five level of analysis: individual, team,
firm, network and institutional.
Table 4.1 reveals that most existing knowledge about BMI is fragmented since
76% of the 156 papers adopt a single level of analysis and the majority of those use
the firm as the level of investigation. This fragmentation is exacerbated by the
adoption of different perspectives. For example, while researchers studying BMI at
the network level of analysis tend to adopt a marketing (e.g., Palo and Tähtinen
2013) or entrepreneurship perspective (Gerasymenko et al. 2015), authors focusing
on the institutional level of analysis tend to adopt a strategic management
(Gambardella and McGahan 2010) or practice-oriented perspective (Hwang and
Christensen 2008). Therefore, our review reveals not only that the BMI literature
focuses on one level of analysis at a time but also that the choice of level of analysis
is typically accompanied by a reliance on different perspectives, making the inte-
gration and accumulation of findings difficult.
In short, the main knowledge gap, related to disciplines and levels of analysis,
refers to the need to conduct research on BMI that goes beyond the firm level and
specifically addresses the underlying mechanisms of BMI at the individual, team,
network, and institutional levels of analysis. This can be achieved with integrative
research that expands the knowledge held on each level. In particular, meso levels
represent highly promising research avenues such as the abovementioned team and
network levels of analysis.
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Chapter 5
BMI from the Perspective of Five
Disciplines
Abstract This chapter categorizes the 156 papers included in our systematic
analysis according to the disciplines to which they belong. Our thematic and
ontological analyses identified five different disciplines dealing with BMI: strategic
management, organizational studies, marketing, and entrepreneurship. In addition
to these, we have the practice-oriented group of papers. This chapter is organized as
follows, each section considers one of the five different disciplines and first ana-
lyzes how BMI is treated in it by reviewing the main research questions, the
theoretical perspectives, and the methodologies employed in the papers considered
in our systematic literature review. Specifically, we will discuss the papers most
cited in each field and their contribution to the knowledge on BMI. Finally, the
chapter presents the categorization of the papers according to their main perspec-
tives and levels of analysis (illustrated in the fourth chapter of this book), providing
a specific research agenda for future research.
5.1 Introduction
The 43 papers under the strategic management discipline are works that mainly
consider strategies that lead to, or facilitate BMI, and/or the strategic consequences
of BMI.
Among the strategic management papers are some seminal contributions to start
the debate when it was in its infancy (e.g., Teece 2010; Zott and Amit 2010; Demil
and Lecocq 2010). While it is not possible to identify a unique subject of debate, we
can see at least two streams in the discourses that strategic management scholars
have been (and are) proposing: the first related to the strategic drivers and outcomes
of BMI and the second to the processes that lead to BMI.
Here we find studies that consider the effects of product/service innovation on
BMI (Björkdahl 2009), the effects of managers’ initiatives on BMI (Cavalcante
2014), the effects of technology on BMI (Gambardella and McGahan 2010), the
underlying factors influencing the degree of business model innovation in
low-income markets (Sanchez and Ricart 2010), or what affects BM flexibility and
BM performance (Nair et al. 2012). In this vein, authors have also researched how
the initiatives taken in the context of an emergent technology affect companies’
business models (with a focus on the pre-stage of business model change)
(Cavalcante 2014).
The second one addresses questions related to the “How” of BMI instead: what
are the processes that lead to BMI? Here we find for example work that studies the
processes through which a BM emerged and evolved (Dunford et al. 2010), the
design strategies and operating mechanisms of the business models (Ho et al. 2010),
how a BM evolves, looking at the interactions between its building blocks and
external variables with a transformational approach (Demil and Lecocq 2010), how
BMI interacts in the relationship between investments in research and development
and advertising and firm performance during recessions (Cucculelli et al. 2014), and
the dynamics of this intersection between technology and business models (Tongur
and Engwall 2014).
140 5 BMI from the Perspective of Five Disciplines
Our systematic literature review revealed that the main theoretical approaches
deployed to answer the research questions mentioned above are: theories of value
creation (e.g., Björkdahl 2009); the resource-based view (e.g., Svejenova et al.
2010); activity systems (Zott and Amit 2010); and more recently the cognitive
approach (e.g., Martins et al. 2015).
The theories of value creation first appeared in strategic management literature.
According to this perspective, companies can create value in the market through the
development of a new BM owing to the introduction of new technologies (e.g.,
Björkdahl 2009) or when forced by external contingencies (Bouwman et al. 2008);
or in partnership with other actors in the market to co-create innovative value for
stakeholders (Ho et al. 2010).
The resource-based view is the most utilized perspective in the management
field. It holds that companies can develop a new BM owing to the accumulation of
knowledge inside the organization (Nair et al. 2012); Demil and Lecoq (2010),
adopting Penrose’s view of the firm as bundle of resources, developed a model
explaining the BMI processes. Gambardella and McGahan (2010), in contrast,
consider BMI to be the commercialization of knowledge-based assets.
The activity systems approach (also known as the BM design approach) follows
the conceptualization of BM proposed by Zott and Amit (2010) “BM is a system of
interdependent activities that transcends the focal firm and spans its boundaries”
(Zott and Amit 2010: p. 216). The researchers adopting this systematic vision of
BMI are interested in studying the intra-firm dynamics of BMI (e.g., Spector 2013);
the external forces influencing the BMI system, such as the impact of multiple
stakeholders’ power (e.g., Miller et al. 2014); and the organizational processes that
modify the nature, the structure of the BM activities and their interconnections
(Cavalcante 2014).
In recent years, a cognitive approach arose in the strategic management litera-
ture, according to which BMIs are managers’ interpretations and re-interpretations
of external and internal variables and resources (Martins et al. 2015). Thus, BMs
change not only because of external and internal stimuli, but also owing to man-
agers’ and entrepreneurs’ cognitive and intellectual abilities and skills.
In terms of the main approach adopted in this field, a vast majority of papers are
qualitative (31 out of 43), whereas conceptual or descriptive contributions account
for six contributions, and quantitative papers five. Among the group of qualitative
papers, most adopt a case study approach. For example, Cavalcante (2014) ana-
lyzed four Danish companies with 19 interviewees of middle managers; Sanchez
and Ricart (2010) studied seven business ventures; Dunford and colleagues focused
on a single-case study of ING Direct (Dunford et al. 2010); as did Demil and Lecoq
who studied Arsenal football club, (Demil and Lecocq 2010); Ho and colleagues
analyzed three firms in Taiwan (Ho et al. 2010). These are only a few examples, and
what they all seem to have in common is that the authors strived to offer in-depth
analyses, often underpinned by long-term research to present a longitudinal
perspective.
In addition to this very populated group we find conceptual papers like the one
by Zott and Amit (2010) that focuses on BM design and asserts that through
5.2 BMI from the Perspective of the Strategic Management Discipline 141
focusing on activity system, companies are able to design better BMs (Zott and
Amit 2010); or the paper by Gambardella and McGahan that describes how tech-
nology change is related to BMI (Gambardella and McGahan 2010).
Finally, among the very few quantitative papers we mention as an example the
work by Kim and Min who have analyzed 131 publicly traded store-based retailers
(Kim and Min 2015), or the contribution by Cucculelli and colleagues who ana-
lyzed 376 Italian clothing SMEs during the period 2000–2010 (Cucculelli et al.
2014).
In terms of sectorial focus, also in this case we find various papers considering
hi-tech sectors. For example, Cavalcante analyses a new technology—the European
Global Satellite Navigation System (GNSS) (Cavalcante 2014); and Nair and col-
leagues focus on the airline industry (Nair et al. 2012). Interestingly the range of
sectors considered seems to be greater than we found in the entrepreneurship
group. Sectors analyzed include banking (Dunford et al. 2010; Yunus et al. 2010),
football (Demil and Lecocq 2010), the automotive industry (Tongur and Engwall
2014), gastronomy (Svejenova et al. 2010), clothing (Cucculelli et al. 2014), and
the retail sector (Kim and Min 2015). Finally, a few articles consider various sectors
simultaneously (e.g., Sanchez and Ricart 2010; Björkdahl 2009).
There are 15 papers included in our systematic literature review appearing since
2005 that are ascribable to the organizational discipline. Although articles under the
organizational studies discipline appeared later than those under other disciplines,
those articles do make significant contributions.
In particular, this discipline seems to convey specific research objectives related
to BMI, such as the link between organizational design and BMI (e.g., Zott and
Amit 2007); how organizational behaviors influence BMI (e.g., Bohnsack et al.
2014); the relationship between different experimentation and learning approaches
and BMI (Andries and Debackere 2013); the role of individuals and teams in
shaping BMI (e.g., Aspara et al. 2013). In the last two years, cultural studies related
to BMI have also emerged in this field (e.g., Dalby et al. 2014).
At the early stage of BMI research in the organizational studies discipline,
authors focused on the link between organizational design and BMI. Zott and
Amit’s (2007) seminal work opened the research on this theme, demonstrating how
two particular business model designs—efficiency centered and novelty centered—
affect the performances of companies. In this stream, Carayannis et al. (2015)
studied how external stakeholders, in particular customers and partners, affect the
innovation processes of different BM designs. Other authors showed how specific
organizational tools drive choosing among different BMI designs. Pateli and Giaglis
(2005), for instance, proposed “scenario planning” as a useful tool to identify the
most relevant changes in BMs.
142 5 BMI from the Perspective of Five Disciplines
organizational behaviors (e.g., Doz and Kosonen 2010) and organizational learning
(e.g., Sanz-Velasco and Saemundsson 2008). In the same way, longitudinal case
studies emerge in works dealing with the relationship between learning organiza-
tional processes and BMIs (Aspara et al. 2013; Sosna et al. 2010). Bohnsack et al.
(2014) employed a longitudinal case study in their organizational behavior study.
Some authors combined the longitudinal with multiple case study methods.
Notably, Andries and Debackere (2013) applied a longitudinal case study method to
six ventures active in various industries, all of them facing considerable levels of
market and technological uncertainty and developing a variety of BMs to address
their situation. Finally, there are a few papers adopting an econometric analysis. For
instance, Zott and Amit (2007) created a panel of 190 firms listed on the U.S. or
European public exchanges, and monitored them between 1996 and 2000.
In terms of sectorial focus, the organizational discipline shows the same pattern
of industries depicted in other disciplines, where IT is the most often represented
(Chesbrough 2010; Doz and Kosonen 2010; Aspara et al. 2013; Bohnsack et al.
2014, Dalby et al. 2014). Other industries investigated in the organizational field
include education—and particularly university spin-offs, (Sanz-Velasco and
Saemundsson 2008)—and dietary supplement retailing chains (Sosna et al. 2010).
Papers related to the marketing discipline represent 33% of the studies considered in
our systematic literature review (n = 18).
Marketing research on BMI investigates how companies can create and deliver
value for stakeholders, and particularly for customers. As actual and potential
customers change in a continuously changing environment, firms have to modify
their BMs to improve the value proposed and delivered to the market. Thus,
marketing papers on BMI mainly focus on three main themes: customer value
creation, commercialization of BMI (value delivery and capture) and customer
knowledge to deliver better segmentation and targeting.
• As regards customer value creation, marketing scholars investigate value cre-
ation through BMs in terms of new technologies. Where value can be ascribed
to new business processes through new technologies and thus business model
innovation (Simmons et al. 2013). Moreover, Sorescu et al. (2011), for instance,
proposed a framework of six design themes to be used to innovate business
models with three basic themes around customer value creation; customer
efficiency, customer effectiveness, and customer engagement and three corre-
sponding themes around value appropriation; operational efficiency, operational
effectiveness, and customer lock-in (Sorescu et al. 2011). Another theme related
to new ways to create value, is value co-creation, incorporating how value
emerges through company-customer interaction, which is also known as
value-in-use (Anderson et al. 2009). This concept also highlights the interactive
144 5 BMI from the Perspective of Five Disciplines
and networks. In the former, value is co-created and the customer-firm relationship
is a means to achieve successful BMI, and thus firms and customers have to invest
in specific relational assets (Ng et al. 2013; Brettel et al. 2012). In the latter,
customer and network value is a collegial activity where customers, competitors,
and suppliers combine to plan and develop BMI in a collective and interrelated
way.
With regard to the method of inquiry, most papers utilize qualitative methods,
among which we can mention the multiple case study (7); longitudinal case study
(3), single-case study (1), grounded theory (1) and one conceptual paper (1). Six
papers use a quantitative method, of which five utilize a survey as a research design
strategy and the other adopts an experiment as its method of inquiry.
Methodologically, of the 18 articles in the marketing discipline, three mention
general and varied sectors. As in the other disciplines, the most used research
design is the case study, and most of the research is still in its early stages. In the
marketing discipline as elsewhere, case studies help authors to gather in-depth
insights into a specific company and to identify the specific issues of BMI on
external concepts such as customers, the environment, competitors, and partners.
The industry most often examined in the articles found in the marketing disci-
pline was the technological sector with six articles referencing it. Similarly, four
articles focused on the service sector as empirical examples of BMI. The remaining
industries used for this comparative research were manufacturing (2) and retailing
(2).
1
For parsimony reasons the papers related to innovation and technology management were
included as a sub-group of the entrepreneurship discipline. It is important to note that a large
amount of contributions on BMI include analyses of technology and technological innovation. Our
findings show that the latter is mostly seen as a driver of BMI. In many cases, technological sectors
are also considered as the most suitable ones to study BMI as BMI occurs quite often in such
contexts.
146 5 BMI from the Perspective of Five Disciplines
games) during one- or two-day design workshops. In this interesting research, BMI
was studied from the perspective of business case owners and invited participants
who engaged in several consecutive design games, each related to a set of business
model components (Gudiksen 2015). Another article performed qualitative analysis
using secondary data about service innovation projects in a major mobile telecom
company (Wang et al. 2015). Others in turn have simply performed semi-structured
interviews with serial entrepreneurs to dig deeper into BMI strategies (Chroneer
et al. 2015).
Far less popular are works adopting solely quantitative methods (3 out of 25). In
this case the sources of information are surveys (Osiyevskyy and Dewald 2015) or
some integrations of various sources. For example, Velu and Khanna (2013)
integrated annual reports with data from press releases to study 129 new firms
between 1995 and 2004 (Velu and Khanna 2013). Cucculelli and Bettinelli
meanwhile integrated archival financial data with survey data from 376 small and
medium-sized Italian enterprises over the period 2000–2010 (Cucculelli and
Bettinelli 2015).
In addition to solely qualitative and solely quantitative papers, we also note the
emergence of pieces of work using multi-method approaches. These seem very
promising in that they allow for a better appreciation of the multiple aspects of
BMI. For example, Gerasymenko et al. collected data from the following sources:
(1) surveys answered by general partners of venture capital firms (VCFs) (2) the
VCFs’ financial reports to their shareholders; (3) online sources, and (4) interviews
with managers of venture capital backed portfolio companies (Gerasymenko et al.
2015). Likewise, Günzel and Holm combined interview data with archival data
sources, and their notes taken at events, workshops, and conferences over the period
2002–2011(Günzel and Holm 2013). A similar approach was adopted by Habtay
and Holmén who integrated case studies with surveys (Habtay and Holmén 2014).
Finally, a number of authors have proposed conceptual papers, mainly to the-
orize and discuss the nature of BMI (Evans and Johnson 2013; Abdelkafi et al.
2013; Shelton 2009; Martins et al. 2015), others have proposed less popular
approaches like a game-theory model (Casadesus-Masanell and Zhu 2013), con-
ceptual theory development seeking support from illustrative cases (Huarng 2013;
Amit and Zott 2015), or purely descriptive papers (Michalski 2003).
In terms of sector focus, we found that papers emerging from the
entrepreneurship perspective, have largely favored the high technology sectors.
Such papers tend to select specific high tech sub-sectors: Information
Technology and software (Lazonick et al. 2013; De Reuver et al. 2013), the mobile
service sector (Chroneer et al. 2015; Wang et al. 2015), the internet (Huarng 2013),
aerospace (Evans and Johnson 2013), electric mobility (Abdelkafi et al. 2013),
audio and electric solutions (Taran et al. 2015), information and communication
technologies (ICT) and biotechnology (Gerasymenko et al. 2015), renewable
energy in the electric power sector (Richter 2013), and finally brewing technology
(Seidenstricker and Linder 2014). Others have instead preferred a more general
approach focusing on high tech in general and including various sub-sectors
(Habtay and Holmén 2014).
148 5 BMI from the Perspective of Five Disciplines
Interestingly, even in cases where the sector focus was not on high tech
industries, the analysis pertained to how a firm from a non-high tech sector could
take advantage of technological innovations through BMI. For example, Velu and
Khanna studied 129 new firms operating between 1995 and 2004 in the US bond
market following the advent of internet technology (Velu and Khanna 2013),
Mezger (2014) and Günzel and Holm (2013) focused on six case studies from the
specialized publishing industry and on three Danish newspapers respectively
(Günzel and Holm 2013; Mezger 2014); both these sectors underwent huge changes
following the advent of technological innovation. Similarly Amit and Zott use nine
illustrative cases from the peer to peer lending industry (a sector that took advantage
of new internet BMs) (Amit and Zott 2015). Notably, only a few articles consider
BMI in more traditional contexts such as small- and medium-sized Italian enter-
prises in the clothing industry (Cucculelli and Bettinelli 2015), or firms belonging
to the real estate brokerage industry (Osiyevskyy and Dewald 2015).
Finally, we mention a small group of authors who examined BMI from on a
range of industries simultaneously such as services and manufacturing (Enkel and
Mezger 2013).
The papers under the practice-oriented category are those written by, or mainly for
practitioners. Understandably, we do not find papers with the typical research
question-theory-methods-results structure in this group. We find instead pieces with
various structures that contain reports of surveys (e.g., Kiron et al. 2013a, b,
Berman et al. 2012; Vlachos et al. 2006), descriptions (e.g., Hwang and Christensen
2008; Chesbrough 2007a, b), experience-based recommendations (e.g., Engel 2011;
Koen et al. 2011; Tuulenmäki and Välikangas 2011), exploratory case-based
analysis (e.g., Koen et al. 2010, Birkin et al. 2009), or selected best practice cases
(Giesen et al. 2007). Because of the aims and structures of these papers, it is not
possible to identify a specific sector focus. Similarly, the discourses presented in
this group of papers are different from the more academic oriented types.
A first group of authors has answered the general question: How can a company
implement successful BMI? In this area we have authors who have (similarly to the
entrepreneurship field but with a more practical focus) focused on the use of new
technologies such as cloud tech (Berman et al. 2012) or on the implementation of
supportive strategies such as co-development (Chesbrough and Schwartz 2007).
Others have instead simply offered their perspectives on how BMI can be suc-
cessfully implemented (Sinfield et al. 2012); developed a BMI typology to better
explain the complex set of factors that distinguishes three types of business model
innovations and their associated challenges (Koen et al. 2011); or considered the
conditions, capabilities, and characteristics that support the design and execution of
5.6 BMI from the Perspective of Practice-Oriented Writers 149
successful BMI (Giesen et al. 2010). In this group we also have practitioner ori-
ented reports on successful examples of BMI (Leavy 2010; Pohle and Chapman
2006).
A second group has explored the practical applications of BMI in specific
contexts such as large companies (Koen et al. 2010), healthcare services (Hwang
and Christensen 2008), mobile services (Eriksson et al. 2008), the hospitality
industry (Kandampully 2006), the digital content market (Swatman et al. 2006), the
online music industry (Vlachos et al. 2006), and e-commerce (Malhotra 2002).
A third group has offered a set of practical suggestions and concrete steps and
recipes to attain BMI. These are methods, approaches, and tactics such as the use of
experiments that promote radical rethinking (Tuulenmäki and Välikangas 2011),
the adoption of a systematic approach (Euchner and Ganguly 2014), the use of a
Business Model Framework (BMF) for nurturing BM innovation (Chesbrough
2010), the adoption of a three-type system to describe distinctive but often com-
plementary types BMI (Giesen et al. 2007), or the venture capital model (Engel
2011).
Finally, a last group of contributions deals with sustainability issues. Birkin and
colleagues for example identified a new business model for sustainable develop-
ment (Birkin et al. 2009). Kiron and colleagues explained how organizations tackle
sustainability-related challenges—ranging from resource scarcity to customer
demands for healthier products—with innovations that create business value (Kiron
et al. 2013a), and also presented the perspectives of many executives who believe
BMI derived from sustainability demands is associated with higher profits (Kiron
et al. 2013b).
In order to conclude our discussion on the level of analysis (Chap. 4) and theo-
retical perspectives, we have summarized our results in Table 5.2. The table pre-
sents the categorization of the papers considered in our systematic literature review,
according to their main perspectives and levels of analysis adopted. In summary, we
can state that among the papers belonging to the strategic management field, two
mainly use an individual level of analysis, one uses the team level, 32 adopt the firm
level, five the network, and three the institutional level of analysis. Of the 16 papers
belonging to the organizational studies discipline, five use the individual level, one
the team level, nine focus on the firm level of analysis, five adopt the network
perspective, and three the institutional level.
The marketing group of papers focus mainly on three levels: one uses the
individual level, 15 the firm level, and two the network level. The same can be said
for the entrepreneurship papers: they have focused on three levels: four use the
individual level of analysis, 23 the firm level, and three the network level. Finally,
of the practice-oriented papers, six use an individual level, 12 a firm level, and three
a network level.
150 5 BMI from the Perspective of Five Disciplines
Table 5.2 BMI papers categorized based on multiple perspectives and levels of analysis
Individual Team Firm Network Institutional
Strategic 2, 166 96 167, 177,174, 150, 162, 82, 37, 212,
management 159, 506, 148, 271, 161
89,155, 160, 92, 564,
528, 532, 533, 534, 604
538, 540, 547, 548,
550, 551, 561, 574,
586, 587, 588, 589,
590, 593, 597, 598,
602
Organizational 16, 165, 164 14, 22, 163, 258, 4, 542
studies 218, 560, 235, 18, 19, 580
26
Marketing 38 23, 41, 42, 43, 48, 45, 153
75, 76, 31, 98, 44,
110, 530, 535, 545,
552
Practice-oriented 158, 243, 83, 137, 145, 147, 239 248, 249,
136, 141, 62, 116, 225, 226, 206, 186,
214, 252 103, 262, 544, 529 246, 295
Entrepreneurship 503, 505, 25, 284, 500, 504, 5, 40,
549 105, 20, 29, 63, 74, 581
70, 73, 12, 194, 72,
537, 526, 527, 541,
554, 576, 579, 601
*The numbers represent our codification of papers. 24 papers could not be classified because they
did not take an explicit position in terms of perspective
Table 5.2 reveals that the BMI literature focuses on one level of analysis at a
time and its study is fragmented through the lenses of several theoretical
perspectives.
5.8 Conclusion
The results of this chapter open up the debate on future developments in research
both within and across the above-mentioned disciplines.
The strategic management perspective could benefit from more research that
expands the analysis of the strategic input elements that result in BMI. Possible
developments include a finer grained consideration of strategies that could be
achieved by considering different strategies simultaneously to see how they interact
(e.g., innovation in tandem with market orientation and design activities). In
addition, the strategic management literature could also be advanced owing to
contributions that delve into the outcomes of BMI in terms of performance. In this
5.8 Conclusion 151
sense, more quantitative studies that systematically measure the effects of BMI on a
longitudinal basis could be helpful. Answering these questions could also con-
tribute to a better understanding of the processes that leads to BMI.
Scholars interested in organizational studies could target boosting the interesting,
yet still developing, streams focusing on the relationships between organizational
design and BMI and, between behavioral and/or psychological aspects and BMI. As
indicated above, these two streams have already received attention but there
remains potential for development. It would be interesting to shed light on the
(possibly) circular dynamics that emerge in the organization when considering the
above-mentioned aspects. In other words, a better understanding of how organi-
zational design affects and is affected by cognitive processes before, during, and
after BMI would be welcome.
The marketing perspective includes interesting (even if not very numerous)
papers that lay the ground for promising further research, specifically on customer
value creation and on the commercialization of the outcomes of BMI. Challenging
research questions in this area relate to how the co-creation of customer value
together with the application of the SDL might foster new types of BMI. Answering
these questions could offer a broader view of the role that market-related issues play
in the understanding of BMI.
Scholarship from the entrepreneurship field has traditionally tended to focus on
start-ups and innovation activities, but new research avenues are also emerging in
the corporate entrepreneurship area and in the analysis of established firms. The
latter topic seems to have particular potential for interesting research within the
discipline; for example, on delivering a better understanding of how BMI differs
between start-ups and more established firms.
Finally, the practice-oriented papers offer stimulating ideas to develop research
questions. Owing to their nature these papers aim to address practical problems and
issues that emerge during the BMI process. Further work might seek to explain how
the papers in this field could contribute to a better understanding of the BMI
concept. In addition, these papers include several key insights into the identification
of new BMI dynamics.
The major research topics presented in the above-mentioned disciplines focus on
a number of different aspects. At the same time, some overlaps (such as the focus on
concepts of value creation, capture, and design) also exist. Therefore, considering
the major streams that we summarized above, an intriguing potential for integration
across perspectives arises. In other words, challenging research questions could be
identified if we started integrating the extant research agendas presented in the
different disciplines. For example, BMI could be studied by integrating the
entrepreneurship and marketing literatures to learn how users’ entrepreneurship
leads to particular forms of BMI and how those might be extended to other fields.
152 5 BMI from the Perspective of Five Disciplines
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Chapter 6
Conclusions and Research Agenda
Abstract This chapter concludes our work by summarizing all the results derived
from the analyses illustrated and discussed in the previous chapters. This chapter
contributes to the knowledge of business model innovation (BMI) in three ways.
First, we review the integrative framework related to the drivers, contingencies, and
outcomes of BMI that was complemented with a deep analysis of theoretical
perspectives and future research. Second, we propose an integrated multilevel
(individual, team, firm, network and institutional) and multidisciplinary (strategic
management, organizational studies, marketing, entrepreneurship, and practice-
oriented) framework for BMI. Third, these perspectives of analysis facilitate the
development of a comprehensive research agenda that can stimulate future studies
on BMI from different perspectives, such as, a deeper BMI conceptualization, a
wider and mixed usage of research methods, more integrative studies able to
integrate level of analysis and a multidisciplinary understanding of BMI. These
future contributions can improve the knowledge of the underlying mechanisms of
BMI, and particularly of its drivers, outcomes, and contingencies.
6.1 Introduction
The result is an integrative framework derived from the literature on the drivers,
contingencies, and outcomes of BMI, complemented with a deep analysis on the-
oretical perspective and level of analysis. Using this integrative model, we provided
a critical analysis of what we know and what we need to know about BMI.
Some recent research has attempted to clarify the concept of business models
(e.g., Wirtz et al. 2015; Demil et al. 2015), providing various perspectives on their
change and innovation (e.g., Osiyevskyy and Dewald 2015; Gerasymenko et al.
2015; Martins et al. 2015), but the literature remains highly fragmented. As Arend
(2013, p. 393) noted, confusion persists because of the lack of “independence of the
concept from other levels of analysis” and of consensus around its drivers and
boundaries.
One reason for this fragmentation is that scholars study BMI through different
disciplinary and conceptual lenses and at different levels of analysis. BMI is also
usually considered from one level of analysis at a time. It is primarily studied at the
firm level, rather than the individual, institutional, or network level of analysis.
Our proposed review integrates the BMI literature from fields including strategic
management, organizational studies, entrepreneurship, and marketing as well as
practitioner-orientated literature. It makes the following contributions. First, our
integrative model clarifies the concept of BMI, by identifying drivers, contingencies
and outcomes through an ontological approach. This model will enable future
research to improve our understanding of how to measure BMI and the underlying
conditions under which it leads to specific outcomes. Second, we address the need
for multi-perspective models of BMI (Morris et al. 2005). Third, our multilevel
approach means our review also helps bridge the divide between levels of analysis
in the field of management (Molloy et al. 2010; Aguinis et al. 2011).
The first result of our SLR, followed by an ontological and thematic analysis, is a
theoretical framework encompassing a number of themes that we hereafter further
summarize in terms of drivers, contingencies, and outcomes of BMI (see
Table 6.1).
As discussed in Chap. 3,1 the first thematic area that emerged from the BMI
literature was drivers of BMI. These are activities, networking and cooperation,
environmental factors, and organizational characteristics. Overall, there is a rela-
tively strong focus on management activities as drivers of BMI in the literature. The
adoption of a service-oriented approach is one of the most recent developments;
most of the papers reviewed are relatively recent and the insights they offer may
contribute to a further understanding of the dynamics that lie beyond BMI.
1
The complete research agenda of themes is discussed in the third chapter of this book.
6.2 BMI Framework and Future Research 161
model designed to facilitate BMI may be a key success factor in the future, and
research is needed to clarify whether and how some business models are more
prone to successful renewal than others.
The BMI outcomes theme includes real and perceived economic performance,
value, and industry effects. Real economic performance may be the most objective
way to measure BMI outcomes, but it offers only a partial representation of the truth.
BMI can affect different economic performance indicators (e.g., profits, productivity,
returns on sales, market value) in different ways. Future research might need to
include several measures of economic performance. Value creation definitely
belongs in the BMI theoretical frameworks; it represents intermediate outcomes as
well as being an antecedent of economic performance. Finally, BMI innovation
outcomes, in terms of industry and organization structure, may be endogenous and
need to be carefully managed in future empirical research. For example, industry
structure may drive a firm to innovate its business model and this in turn may affect
firm structure. Disentangling these effects is a challenge for future research.
The review provided in this book can be used to identify important knowledge gaps
in the BMI literature. This section describes these gaps, and the next section offers
specific suggestions—a road map for future research—to address each of these
knowledge gaps.
First, the review reveals many nuances of BMI definitions, and many papers cite
multiple instances simultaneously. To avoid confusion and increase the robustness
of this field of research, it is important that future papers clarify their position in
terms of perspective (i.e., the BMI context, level of analysis, and definition of
BMI).
Second, the review reveals many studies adopt the firm as the level of analysis
while studies that adopt the individual, team, network, or institutional level are
relatively underrepresented. Despite promising results in reporting individual-level
drivers of BMI such as cognition (Aspara et al. 2013; Osiyevskyy and Dewald
2015), a better understanding is needed of the drivers, processes, and outcomes that
occur when teams and networks implement BMI. Moreover, although BMI takes
place at the organizational level of analysis, individual actors and teams actually
strategize on, make decisions about, and execute BMI initiatives. While we
acknowledge that the organizational dimension is essential in the study of BMI
(Foss and Saebi 2015) and organizations are the common tie that binds manage-
ment scholars (Molloy et al. 2010), we believe there would be far more to study if
other levels of analysis were also examined.
Another interesting research area is the link between managerial team features
(i.e., diversity, education, and demographic characteristics) and managerial-team-
level outcomes in terms of BMI (e.g., the ability to learn from previous BMI and the
ability to design new and effective BMs) and how this relationship is mediated by
individual-level variables (i.e., individual employees’ postures and attitudes). An
additional interesting research question is how disparate, individual-level features
(e.g., attitudes or heuristics) instantiate themselves in collective actions leading
to BMI.
In addition, the open issue of what constitutes organizational boundaries (Felin
et al. 2015) stresses the importance of the BM as a unit of analysis per se that is
useful for research on boundary-spanning innovation (Zott and Amit 2007). Thus, it
168 6 Conclusions and Research Agenda
6.5 Conclusion
This book gathers, synthesizes, and interprets the BMI literature from its inception
until 2015, with the objective of contributing to the literature in three ways: first,
clarifying the BM and BMI domain; second, providing a multilevel analysis of the
BMI literature; third providing a multi-perspective analysis, and finally suggesting a
research agenda for future research. The main goal is to go beyond the analysis and
interpretation of existing papers, and using the extensive resource of the BMI
literature, to improve knowledge of the nature and dimensions of BMI, and thereby
to disentangle different perspectives and levels of analysis.
Through a systematic search of the literature, we found and reviewed 156
papers. Compared to previous SLRs on BMI (Schneider and Spieth 2013), this
work analyzes a wider database of papers (i.e., by including practitioner works and
a wide range of management journals) and hence can illustrate more finely-grained
domains of BMI.
The results of this ontological analysis can advance both current understanding
and the ongoing debate surrounding the BMI concept. In particular, the SLR
contributes to the ongoing BMI debate by highlighting the perspective silos in
which BMI literature has developed. We hope that this overview can help
researchers address BMI from multiple perspectives in future work.
The current work is neither exhaustive nor definitive, as the ongoing debate on
BMI is still lively and topical. Using a rigorous protocol and an ontological
organization (instead of content analysis or a predetermined framework of analysis),
we have followed a replicable and valid method for analyzing the BMI literature.
By clarifying the fragmented BM and BMI concepts, we have contributed to
knowledge on topical and under-researched themes and provided an alternative
perspective for analysis. Furthermore, we demonstrated how the BMI literature has
progressed from practitioner-oriented and normative approaches to more scientific
and theoretical contributions, even though the theory-building process of this field
is still underdeveloped.
6.6 Limitations
We acknowledge that other researchers could deliver different insights and produce
different ontological structures. Thus, one limitation of this research might be its not
employing an independent group of researchers that could control and provide
alternative thematic and ontological investigation. We selected the articles that refer
specifically to the concept of BMI, and in so doing excluded for instance innovation
and change management papers if they did not explicitly refer to BMI. This
decision derived from the methodology and the objectives set for this book, such as
contributing to the understanding of BMI as a phenomenon per se.
170 6 Conclusions and Research Agenda
Moreover, going beyond the research objectives of this book, we argue that the
current fragmented state of BMI studies makes it difficult to categorize papers in
silos, and that the validity of our method is based on the researchers’ discussion,
negotiation, and agreement. Future research, employing SLR, could add a check
procedure, by asking an external team of researchers to assess a random sample of
codes.
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