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1 – 10 of over 50000To innovate the company business model, executives must first understand what it is, and then examine what paths exist for them to improve on it. This article aims to examine this…
Abstract
Purpose
To innovate the company business model, executives must first understand what it is, and then examine what paths exist for them to improve on it. This article aims to examine this issue.
Design/methodology/approach
The article provides a practical definition of business models and offers a Business Model Framework (BMF) that illuminates the opportunities for business model innovation.
Findings
The article finds that BMF sequences possible business models from very basic (and not very valuable) models to far more advanced (and very valuable) models. Using the BMF, companies can assess where their current business model stands in relation to its potential and then define appropriate next steps for the further advancement of it.
Practical implications
An organization must give a senior manager the resources and authority to define and launch business‐model experiments.
Originality/value
The article provides a cogent model for assessing the potential for new business model innovation, a framework for carrying it out and a management plan for decision making.
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While it is widely recognized that firms in an era of technological ferment exist under conditions of significant uncertainty and ambiguity, little is known about the exact…
Abstract
While it is widely recognized that firms in an era of technological ferment exist under conditions of significant uncertainty and ambiguity, little is known about the exact processes through which firms explore their ideas and resolve uncertainty. Arguing that our understanding of the era of ferment is much less developed than other aspects of the technology life cycle, we examine the micro-dynamics of technology-based entrepreneurial firms during this period. We focus on the role of purposeful experimentation as a key form of learning for start-ups firms in the era of ferment. Our approach contrasts with the prevailing view in the literature in which the era of ferment is characterized by extensive experimentation across firms, with each firm representing a single data point in an industry-level experiment. It also extends the learning literature by focusing on start-ups and taking the perspective that learning can encompass purposeful experimentation as well as local search and chaotic adaptation in the era of ferment. Building on the literature on experimental design, we propose a definition and taxonomy of purposeful experimentation. The taxonomy defines the experimental landscape as having three domains – technological, product and business model; and two dimensions – degree of simultaneity and degree of parameter manipulation. We examine this framework using data from a technology-based start-up and find evidence for purposeful experimentation as a key element of the firm’s learning strategy. We also highlight the organizational constraints and challenges that are associated with experimentation. Our findings emphasize the importance of entrepreneurial action, choice and internal experimentation processes.
Donald W. Mitchell and Carol Bruckner Coles
This paper describes how to establish a management process for continuing business model innovation, a potent way to enhance overall competitive performance. The findings are…
Abstract
This paper describes how to establish a management process for continuing business model innovation, a potent way to enhance overall competitive performance. The findings are based on research about the current best practices among companies that have gained large competitive advantages in revenue and profit margin growth through continually improving and replacing their business models. Such a process requires articulating and communicating the best practices of the current business model, establishing an appropriate vision for serving stakeholders better in gaining competitive advantage through business model improvements and replacements, stimulating many relevant experiments and tests for potential business model improvements and replacements, and becoming effective in implementing the surviving new business models. Our primary research method is through statistical analysis of the most common elements of business model innovation processes used by the most effective business model innovators.
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Anneleen Van Boxstael and Lien Denoo
We advance theory of how founder identity affects business model (BM) design during new venture creation and contribute to the cognitive perspective on BMs. We look at BM design…
Abstract
We advance theory of how founder identity affects business model (BM) design during new venture creation and contribute to the cognitive perspective on BMs. We look at BM design as a longitudinal process involving a variety of cognitive work that is co-shaped by the founder identity work. Based on an in-depth nine-year process study of a single venture managed by three founders, we observed that a novelty-centered BM design resulted from cognitive work co-shaped by founder identity construction and verification processes. Yet, more remarkably, we noted that founder identity verification decreased over time and observed a process that we labeled “identity-business model decoupling.” It meant that the founders did not alter their founder identity but, over time, attentively grew self-aware and mindfully disengaged negative identity effects to design an effective BM. Our results provide a dynamic view on founder identity imprinting on ventures’ BMs and contribute to the identity, BM, and entrepreneurship literatures.
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Rafael Fazzi Bortolini, Marcelo Nogueira Cortimiglia, Angela de Moura Ferreira Danilevicz and Antonio Ghezzi
The primary goal of a startup is to find a viable business model that can generate value for its customers while being effectively captured by the startup itself. This business…
Abstract
Purpose
The primary goal of a startup is to find a viable business model that can generate value for its customers while being effectively captured by the startup itself. This business model, however, is not easily defined, being a consequence of the application of tools involving trials, data analyses and testing. The Lean Startup (LS) methodology proposes a process for agile and iterative validation of business models. Given the popularity and importance of such methodology in professional circles, the purpose of this paper is to conduct a historical literature review of existing academic and professional literature, correlating LS concepts and activities to previous theory and alternative business model validation methods.
Design/methodology/approach
A historically oriented systematic literature review employing snowball sampling was conducted in order to identify academic and professional literature and references for iterative validation of business models. A total of 12 scholarly journals and professional magazines dealing with strategy, innovation, entrepreneurship, startups and management were used as data sources. The extensive literature review resulted in 963 exploratory readings and 118 papers fully analyzed.
Findings
The results position the LS as a practical-oriented and up-to-date implementation of strategies based on the Learning School of strategy making and the effectuation approach to entrepreneurship; the authors also identify a number of methods and tools that can complement the LS principles.
Originality/value
This paper identified and synthesized the scientific, academic and professional foundations that precede, support and complement the main concepts, processes and methods advocated by the LS methodology.
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Nancy Bocken and Jan Konietzko
To meet their ambitious targets for a circular economy, multinationals need to speed up their innovation efforts. This requires experimentation capability. But it is not clear…
Abstract
Purpose
To meet their ambitious targets for a circular economy, multinationals need to speed up their innovation efforts. This requires experimentation capability. But it is not clear what this capability entails, and how companies can build it. The purpose of this paper is to give companies guidance on how they might develop experimentation capability for the circular economy.
Design/methodology/approach
We conduct in-depth interviews with innovators in frontrunner multinationals, H&M, IKEA and Philips. We use the Gioia method to analyse our data.
Findings
This article identifies novel institutional, strategic, and operational actions that build experimentation capability for a circular economy.
Practical implications
The identified actions help innovation managers experiment and speed up their innovation efforts for a circular economy.
Social implications
To reverse environmental degradation, multinationals need to transform their dominant linear take-make-waste business models. This research provides actions that help them organize this transformation.
Originality/value
This article is based on extensive research with leading multinationals and reveals novel insights on how to innovate for a circular economy.
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Raffaello Balocco, Angelo Cavallo, Antonio Ghezzi and Jasmina Berbegal-Mirabent
Business model change (BMC) is a process new ventures are frequently involved in, especially in dynamic environments like the digital industry: copying with it is a key issue for…
Abstract
Purpose
Business model change (BMC) is a process new ventures are frequently involved in, especially in dynamic environments like the digital industry: copying with it is a key issue for entrepreneurs attempting to shorten the transition between current and new business models (BMs) and avoid losses in terms of revenue, image and customer retention, while acquiring experience and validated learning in the process. The purpose of this paper is to propose a lean framework to support digital new ventures in the BMC process.
Design/methodology/approach
The study builds its contribution on two pillars: a review on BM and the lean thinking theories, and a multiple case study on three digital new ventures which underwent BMC.
Findings
The study shows how BMC in a digital context can beneficially follow lean principles, and how these principles can be integrated in an original lean framework to experiment on, validate and subsequently change a BM.
Originality/value
The authors provide the “single minute exchange of die” for BMC framework that extends and complements lean startup approaches to further relate lean thinking and BMC, thus operationalizing the process of BM experimenting and validation that enables change.
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Naveed Moosa and Joe Lee
Companies lose tolerance for risk in tough economic times. The level of risk inherent in new ideas prevents organizations from investing in big, bold innovations that could unlock…
Abstract
Purpose
Companies lose tolerance for risk in tough economic times. The level of risk inherent in new ideas prevents organizations from investing in big, bold innovations that could unlock valuable new sources of revenue and profit. This paper describes how to apply methods extracted from the scientific approach to experimentation to de‐risk radical new business model innovations.
Design/methodology/approach
The ideas presented in the paper were distilled from many years of experience working with organizations such as McDonalds and Best Buy, which have successfully applied the principles of experimentation to developing and launching new business concepts.
Findings
Road‐tested principles from the scientific method, combined with business acumen, define the new science of systemic innovation. Every bold new business concept should be de‐risked and tuned by applying six methods: break it down; sequence learning; iterate; operate at multiple levels of abstraction; create a safe learning environment; and apply experienced hands and new voices.
Originality/value
The paper presents a systemic and rigorous new method for de‐risking radical new business concepts based on well‐known methods extracted from the scientific lab. The approach is particularly important for large companies seeking new sources of growth while facing intense competition in their core businesses from relatively new players.
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Alan Serrano and Mariëlle den Hengst
Business process (BP) and information systems (IS) communities support the idea that BP and IS design should be integrated. Although there are a large number of modelling…
Abstract
Purpose
Business process (BP) and information systems (IS) communities support the idea that BP and IS design should be integrated. Although there are a large number of modelling techniques to aid BP and IS design, there is little indication of which techniques can be suitable to model their integration. This research suggests a simulation model that can be used to depict BP/IS integration.
Design/methodology/approach
The simulation framework proposed in this paper is based on a simulation framework used previously. For both frameworks, a single case study approach is employed for theory building and testing. The results provided by the application of the ASSESS‐IT framework (theory testing) are used to propose the new ISBPS framework (theory building), which is tested again in the case study.
Findings
The models derived from the ISBPS framework provide quantifiable metrics of the integration of BP and IS. These data can help analysts to foresee the benefits that the insertion of a given IS design may bring to the organisational processes.
Research limitations/implications
The development of the ISBPS models proved to be complex. Further research should focus on testing the ISBPS framework with more complex IS and to provide mechanisms to facilitate their design.
Practical implications
IS practitioners may consider simulation to evaluate IS design strategies.
Originality/value
The ISBPS simulation model provides quantifiable metrics of the integration of a given IS design within a given BP scenario. Practitioners can use these models to test alternative BP/IS scenarios before implementation.
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Francesca Ostuzzi and Maya Hoveskog
Teaching sustainable development at the higher education level requires that existing curricula are supplemented with multi-disciplinary (and sometimes multi-national…
Abstract
Purpose
Teaching sustainable development at the higher education level requires that existing curricula are supplemented with multi-disciplinary (and sometimes multi-national) collaboration and integrated thinking. The purpose of this paper is to increase the understanding of a particular framework for business model innovation for sustainability-as-flourishing that is used as a boundary object in the context of interdisciplinary, peer-assessed distance learning. This study is positioned in the broader picture of enlarging curricular content so as to reflect the systemic and interconnected nature of socio-technical and economic developments. The motivation behind this study is the authors’ wish to achieve a deeper understanding of how students engage with the complex concept of sustainable business modelling, while using the flourishing business canvas (FBC).
Design/methodology/approach
An experiment was conducted on the use of the FBC as a boundary object among 52 engineering students at two universities. Data were provided by the following: iterations of the FBC; oral and written peer feedback; and an online survey.
Findings
Based on an evaluation of the experiment, this study shows that the FBC supports the use of multi-disciplinary, multi-national peer and distance learning in sustainability education.
Research limitations/implications
This study used one test condition of multi-disciplinary, multi-national collaboration for peer and distance learning at one point in time. Additional tests, using the tools and approaches of this study, are needed.
Originality/value
Various tools and methods for use in education have been developed that support a new view of sustainability –sustainability-as-flourishing. Extant research focusses primarily on the development of tools and methods in this area. Not enough attention has been paid to the analysis of their implementation and use in higher education. This paper seeks to fill that research gap.
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