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Many barriers prevent firms from changing their business models. Inertia, as it accumulates over time, transforms into organizational routines that doom change; however, it can also be a source of organizational flexibility. How does a business model evolve in interaction with organizational routines? This paper aims to study the interactions between forms of participative innovation (PI) and existing business models.

The exploratory approach includes interviews, participant and non-participant observations and archive analysis. It adapts an existing framework, based on the notion of scripts, to the evolutionary dynamic of organizational routines at the French railway company SNCF. The analysis of a set of contextual elements clarifies events over time and interactions between PI and the company’s business model.

The empirical insights indicate how existing routines can help reinvent business models. Business model components evolve along the transformation phases of PI. The case reveals co-evolutionary dynamics: evolution of the organizational routine from bureaucratic suggestion, to structured innovation, to PI leads to the transformation of the business model from functionalist, to customer-centric, to open business model.

Firm managers can think more proactively about how to reinvent established business models by innovating their existing routines, according to the position and role of routines, shifting from sources of rigidity and inertia to levers for innovation and change.

The business model concept serves as a prism of analysis for organizational routines. Organizational routines are sources of flexibility, strategic renewal and business model reinvention.

This study explores the role of business model as a state variable during transformation of a financial institution to become a multinational enterprise. Prior studies of the Uppsala model overlooked business model evolution for cross-border productivity and performance.

The research design employs the resource-based view for an in-depth case study of JMMB, a family-managed Jamaica-based financial firm, using data from primary and secondary sources, covering the period 1992 to 2014.

JMMB's business model was the channel through which resources and capabilities gave rise to an innovative product for successful positioning in an international network. This was augmented by strong family orientation toward customer service, a distinctive asset that shaped the nature and trajectory of the business model. Cross-border alliancing and risk management were crucial dynamic capabilities for replicating the business model in foreign markets.

While the observations are not generalizable to other firms, they indicate that a business model is a key unit of analysis for understanding how the firm makes the transition to become a multinational enterprise.

Financial institutions may internationalize in a small island, developing stages through a strategy of focused product differentiation based on disruptive innovation with cross-border partnerships for ease of market entry and experiential learning.

The research has identified opportunities for effective and efficient work methods in pursuit of productivity gains.

The study is the first to illustrate business model as a state variable in the Uppsala model of multinational enterprise evolution for a financial firm.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how strategic renewal occurs in large incumbent newspaper companies facing a specific context of environment scarcity (i.e. environmental dissolution (the market gradually changing in size and scope)). Within the media industry, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) offers a particularly interesting research setting because the number of competitors in the regional market is regulated by the government; consequently, the incumbent firms face the same local environment. This situation offers the possibility to shed light on how the orientation of the top management team (TMT) of the firm influences the strategic renewal and the traditional business model of the firm.

The strategic renewal of the three largest incumbents of the print newspapers in KSA over 12 years (from 2000 to 2012) was analyzed with a qualitative approach (archival data and 30 interviews with the TMTs of each company and with external observers). A two-step analysis of within-case analysis and cross-case analysis was used.

Building on Schmitt et al.’s (2016) framework, it was empirically found that depending on the orientation of the TMT, the managerial perception of the firm’s environment within the same scarcity situation leads to different strategic renewal responses. The findings demonstrate that internally oriented TMTs engage in incremental business model changes, while externally oriented TMTs engage in disruptive business model changes. However, management’s attitude toward technology has been neglected in the literature so far, and it was concluded that technology plays a mediating role in strategy renewal.

Recent research on strategic renewal in times of environmental scarcity has built on both population ecology and strategic choice literatures and has argued that varying CEO perceptions can lead to very different strategic responses. Other research on business models has started to explore the role of technology in business model evolution. In the context of environmental dissolution, it can be argued that the attitude of the TMT toward technology has a mediating role in business model evolution.

In times of environmental dissolution – the traditional market of the firm changes not only in size but also in scope – strategic renewal is conditioned by the orientation of the TMT and its attitude toward technology. When the traditional business model of the firm is put under pressure by such changes, teams with an external orientation or an appetite for technology will be more likely able to engage in business model disruption.

The authors have had the opportunity to conduct case studies on three large newspapers companies in a country where the regulation is very strong and press freedom is not comparable to other European or North-American countries.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the implementation process of enterprise resource planning (ERP), the evolution of business model innovation (BMI) and the organizational outcome. This research analyses how ERP and BMI are related and, in turn, what is the final the impact on organizational performance.

The sample consisted on 104 organizations from different industries, all of which used an ERP software. A structural equation model was used to test the six hypotheses.

The results indicate that the BMI constructs considered (i.e. value-generation and organizational complexity) mediate the impact of the ERP constructs (organizational adaptation and organizational resistance), in organizational performance. Successful ERP implementation is not an end itself for this companies, but merely a path and a process for improving the business model with the aim improving performance in the marketplace.

This study offers a new outlook on how a company should leverage the ERP adaptation, and any resistance in the organization to innovating in the business model. This study is rooted in the evolutionary perspective of BMI, but it also integrates into an overall model other points of view such as the rational positioning view and cognitive view.

Organizations must understand the ERP flows in depth, each ERP flow is the work result of a multitude of companies over several years. All departments, and in particular the research and development department must participate actively in the ERP implementation. Organised complexity means opportunities for success in the market. Organizations must train their departments in ERP and not just teach them how the ERP works. ERP implementation needs consider improvements to the business model and ultimately the performance, but not separately.

BMI has received contributions from several domains such as entrepreneurship, management organization and strategic management among others. Nonetheless, the role of ERP in BMI is far from being understood and the few contributions focus only on technology per se. To the best of our knowledge this is the first study that has explored the connections of ERP and BMI and in turn the final outcome in organizational performance.

The purpose of the paper was to outline a generic framework for the business model and illuminate its linkages to managerial cognition.

The paper reviewed the focal literature focusing on the actions and evolution of a firm and built a synthesis that describes the different components of a business model.

The main finding was that a business model is essentially both a cognitive phenomenon as well as being built on the material aspects of a firm.

The paper proposes that the business model can be scrutinized in future studies, especially from the viewpoints of cognition, thus creating new avenues for intra‐firm evolutionary studies.

The paper found several implications for practising managers. First, the concept itself creates possibilities for self‐analysis and scenario building. Second, the understanding that a business model is systemic helps managers to evaluate their actions vis‐à‐vis the evolutionary path of the business model. Third, the outlined business model is useful in executive education as it creates a cognitive map of the various aspects of business activities.

The paper offers new insights into the functions and evolution of firms and will be of interest to both researchers and practising managers.

At the level of a cognitive schema, a business model is a mental map of a firm’s value-creating, value-delivering, and value-capturing activities and the linkages between them. An important question in the study of business models as cognitive schemas is whether and how schemas differ across industry actors and whether the differences are connected to the variation observed in actual business models in the industry. This chapter examines, in particular, the ways in which business model schemas of industry insiders differ from those of industry outsiders. Using data from interviews with chief executive officers (CEOs) of 30 legal-tech firms, we graphically construct and analyze the CEOs’ schemas of important causal interdependencies between their firms’ activities. The analysis shows systematic differences between insiders and outsider CEOs’ schemas. We theorize that these differences underlie insider and outsider CEOs’ distinct approaches to opportunity recognition, expertise perception, and value framing, and have consequences for actual business model evolution in the industry.

Purpose – This paper focuses on a unique historical case study of industry evolution in order to develop a road map where historical and strategic research could develop a common ground for trans-disciplinary inquiry.

Design/methodology/approach – The industry I explore is the Universal Credit Card Industry since its inception with the Diners Club in 1949 until its maturity in late 1990s. My empirical objective here is to develop a historically detailed and theoretically rich case study in which evolutionary processes are discovered as a result of the historical narrative.

Findings – The historical account of the industry demonstrates how the evolution of alternative business models as organizing forms has led to the establishment of interorganizational platforms with unique ecosystems. These alternative business models, through various experimentations, have ultimately produced two critical interorganizational organizations, one based on an open-loop system represented by Visa and MasterCard, and the other based on a closed-loop system represented by Diners Club and the American Express. The historical account also shows that in a given industry competition is not only among specific firms in the industry but also among the business models and the platforms created by these models.

Originality/value – I conclude that historical analyses reveal the nature of competition not only among firms but also among alternative business models where traditional strategy research rarely covers.

This paper aims to offer a conceptualization of how and why corporate level strategic change may build on historical differentiation at business unit level.

Methodologically, an historical case study of Nokia Corporation's drastic business model transformation between the years 1987 and 1995 is reported.

The conceptual and historical work results in a process model of business model change, demonstrating how central business units feed strategic alternatives and capabilities to the corporate‐level transformation process.

The results highlight the importance of corporate level “market mechanisms' that allow promising strategic alternatives to emerge and select out inferior options. In this process, a key mechanism is the exchange of executives and cognitive mindsets between business units and corporate headquarters (CHQ).

The reported research offers an original contribution by showing the dynamic interplay of cognitive and organizational change processes, and highlighting the importance of building on existing capabilities and competencies despite the pressure to demonstrate strong turnaround activities.

The purpose of this paper is to show how the business model of the information and communications technology (ICT) industry has evolved and the general differences that evolution has made to information management.

Literature review was carried out accompanied by conceptual analysis.

It shows that changes in the business model of the ICT industry have been quite dramatic and have led to significant changes in the structure of the industry.

This research is based on analysis of the ICT industry. The analysis could be broadened to include other industries. Research into business model change should consider adopting the evolutionary approach taken in this paper.

Managers in the ICT industry should factor the likely evolution of business models in their industry into their planning.

Government policymakers considering how to stimulate the development of the ICT industry in their country should be aware of the moving nature of their target.

This is one of the first papers to apply the evolutionary approach to business model change.

The expanding body of research on business models generally assumes that firms operate in a “transactional” context. Several recent studies suggest that the concept of business models in contexts where relationships matter, such as business markets, involves issues that the transactional microeconomic perspective is ill suited to capture. In the expanding literature on business models, the role of context in how business models emerge and evolve is a topic that appears under researched. The purpose of this paper is to review the findings of these studies and explore how “relational context” affects the emergence and evolution of business models.

The authors review the literature on business models in business markets where high-involvement relationships with customers and suppliers are common, and report a case to illustrate the critical issues involved.

The authors find that context where high-involvement relationships are common implies that business models are relationship specific and tend to be different across key relationships of a business; the involvement of others limits the autonomy of a single business in developing its business model; business models are continuously emergent and transient.

This study is among the few that examine the emergence and evolution of business model in business network in a longitudinal perspective. The value of the study also lies in the implications of the relationship-centric business model for management practice and research.