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The main aim of this paper is to present the characteristics of business renovation efforts and research into some aspects of the business process and information modelling. Different business‐rule categories are discussed and the relationships that exist between business rules and other business‐related concepts are presented. The paper also introduces a business activity meta‐model as an integration link between business and information modelling. Its motivation is to help establish an environment in which business rules can be traced from their origin in the business environment through to their implementation in information systems.

This paper aims at proposing knowledge translation as an element of business model design that can support entrepreneurs in achieving alignment and collaboration between entrepreneurial teams and external stakeholders.

The conceptual model presented in the paper is developed from the literature review and draws mainly on two streams of work as follows: first, the contributions related to the lean start-up methodology initially developed by Blank and Ries and second, the work of Osterwalder and Pigneur on business models and its subsequent developments. In addition, we draw on key insights from the entrepreneurship and organizational learning literature, such as discovery-driven planning and disciplined entrepreneurship.

The continuous validation framework (CVF) is introduced, posing the attention on underlining knowledge-translation mechanisms to decode complex concepts related to new venture creation.

The authors propose a new framework (the CVF) as an effective translational tool because it is a visual diagram that allows entrepreneurs to translate complex and technical ideas into a format that is more understandable for external audiences. Additionally, for each step of the CVF, specific translational mechanisms are defined and discussed, as each stage of the CVF presents specific translational challenges that result in outcomes that differ from stage to stage.

This paper aims to identify and to characterize the current evolution of “sustainable mobility” solutions. After considering this trend as an expression of eco-innovation, the authors look at the impacts of the emerging business models for the introduction of these eco-innovations, on the wider “eco-system” of mobility.

This paper uses both an abductive as well as a inductive approach of responsible innovation. To assume contextualization of responsible innovation, the authors choose eco-innovation in the mobility sector that impacts as much on business models as on industrial organizations and as a global value chain.

Eco-mobility is defined as a disruptive innovation that must be understood as a responsible innovation. The importance of social and institutional dimensions defining acceptance and uptake of the innovation is integrated in innovation characterization. Modifying the perception of eco-innovation, the e-mobility business model has to be reinvented. Doing this, impacts on global value chain of the mobility sector organization have to be analysed.

If the academic literature proposes a satisfactory analysis of the determinants of eco-innovation, the presentation of the “smart mobility” ecosystem as an open and shared innovation remains limited, compared with the question of value creation. The business models which are at present under development will deepen these questions.

This paper discusses inputs for decision-makers in climate change policy and insights for reorganization of the global value chain in the car manufacturing sector.

This paper presents solutions to reduce the negative externalities (social and environmental) of the car manufacturing sector with good possibilities of mobility, inputs to accelerate new markets and new jobs in mobility sector and adequation of mobility services to social demand.

Mixed analyses of sustainable development economics, innovation economics and organization management, and elements to build new business models in eco-mobility as a first step for the question of the adequate business models for “Smart Cities” – an application sector of functionality or service economy – have been presented.

Literature on business models (BMs) has grown ve ry rapidly since the beginning of the twenty-first century, and although the theoretical and empirical literature has developed significantly, the number of practical and management-oriented studies remains relatively low. A recent debate in the field has focused on the definition of BM invariants: sensing customer needs, creating customer value, sustaining value creation and monetizing value. Extant empirical studies have mainly focused on multinational enterprises (MNEs) and successful BMs; however, this study concentrates on the failure of BMs in the case of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). An important source of a BM’s failure is the misalignment between MNE and SME involved in an acquisition.

Looking through the lens of the four BM constants, the aim of this study is to examine the case of the acquisition Domestic Heating (an SME) by Ventilair (an MNE).

Although both separate entities were achieving good results and each had a specific BM, the acquisition produced poor results mainly due to the misalignment of the two BMs. The findings lead the authors to make recommendations to practitioners on avoiding BM misalignment during an acquisition.

The authors encourage practitioners to enhance communication, promote organizational experiments, acknowledge specificities of both entities, foster employee commitment and ensure homogeneity in IT system usage.

Gillette’s historically successful “razor and blade” business model (RBM) has been a promising benchmark for multiple businesses across diverse industries worldwide in the past several decades. The extant literature deals with very few nuances of this business model notwithstanding the fact that there are several variants of this business model being put to practical use by firms in diverse industries in grossly metaphorically equivalent situations.

This study adopts the 2 × 2 truth table framework from the domains of mathematical logic and combinatorics in fleshing out all possible (four logical possibilities) variants of the razor and blade business model for further analysis. This application presents four mutually exclusive yet collectively exhaustive possibilities on any chosen dimension. Two major dimensions (viz., provision of subsidy and intra- or extra-firm involvement in the making of razors or blades or both) form part of the discussion in this paper. In addition, this study synthesizes and streamlines entrepreneurial wisdom from multiple intra-industry and inter-industry benchmarks in terms of real-time firms explicitly or implicitly adopting several variants of the RBM that suit their unique context and idiosyncratic trajectory of evolution in situations that are grossly reflective of the metaphorically equivalent scenario of razor and recurrent blades. Inductive method of research is carried out with real-time cases from diverse industries with a pivotally common pattern of razor and blade model in some form or the other.

Several new variants of the razor and blade model (much beyond what the extant literature explicitly projects) have been discovered from the multiple metaphorically equivalent cases of RBM across industries. All of these expand the portfolio of options that relevant entrepreneurial firms can explore and exploit the best possible option chosen from them, given their unique context and idiosyncratic trajectory of growth.

This study has enriched the literature by presenting and analyzing a more inclusive or perhaps comprehensive palette of explicit choices in the form of several variants of the RBM for the relevant entrepreneurial firms to choose from. Future research can undertake the task of comparing these variants of RBM with those of upcoming servitization business models such as guaranteed availability, subscription and performance-based contracting and exploring the prospects of diverse combinations.

Smart entrepreneurial firms identify and adopt inspiring benchmarks (like razor and blade model whenever appropriate) duly tweaked and blended into a gestalt benchmark for optimal profits and attractive market shares. They target diverse market segments for tied-goods with different variants or combinations of the relevant benchmarks in the form of variegated customer value propositions (CVPs) that have unique and enticing appeal to the respective market segments.

Value-sensitive customers on the rise globally choose the option that best suits them from among multiple alternatives offered by competing firms in the market. As long as the ratio of utility to price of such an offer is among the highest, even a no-frills CVP may be most appealing to one market segment while a plush CVP may be tempting to yet another market segment simultaneously. While professional business firms embrace resource leverage practices consciously, amateur customers do so subconsciously. Each party subliminally desires to have the maximum bang-to-buck ratio as the optimal return on investment, given their priorities ceteris paribus.

Prior studies on the RBM have explicitly captured only a few variants of the razor and blade model. This study is perhaps the first of its kind that ferrets out many other variants (more than ten) of the razor and blade model with due simplification and exemplification, justification and demystification.

This research investigates the nature of regulatory-focused effectuation (as the basis of entrepreneurial behavior) in absorptive capacity development for open innovation implementation, the role of crowds or communities management practices in the effectuation-based open innovation process, and open innovation performance as the output of the open innovation process in digital multi-sided platform (MSP) startups context.

In order to verify the hypothesis, the researcher conducts a quantitative study that is based on a self-administered questionnaire and employs the PLS-SEM approach. The sample comprises of 70 Indonesian digital MSP businesses that have been operational for at least three years and have used open innovation approaches with their audiences, communities or complementors.

The research findings imply that there is a connection between promotion-focused effectuation and the open innovation process. This connection is particularly strong when it comes to the incorporation of absorptive capacity and crowds or communities management practices. On the other hand, prevention-focused effectuation shows insignificant effect toward open innovation process in digital MSP startups context.

The research findings imply that with limited resources and experiences, young entrepreneurs can still implement open innovation strategy for their digital MSP platform through effectuation principles that leverage the external resources from digital platform ecosystem members.

In digital MSP startups context that perform promotion-based effectuation principles, innovation performance can be achieved by analyzing new insight, transforming the existing activities with the new insight, creating new offering afterward, as well as strengthening crowds or communities management practices through co-creation activities with platform ecosystem members that may lead into new business model.

The originality of this work is to make a contribution to the literature on strategic entrepreneurship by describing the phenomena of the paradox of resource-based theory; adopting open innovation strategy under constrained initial resources and capabilities scenario.

This study explores how open innovation (OI) can be instrumental for entrepreneurs in sensing and seizing entrepreneurial opportunities in small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This study also illustrates how OI can help SMEs overcome the liability of smallness.

This is exploratory research using an inductive, multiple-case study approach. This study capitalizes on five in-depth case studies of European SMEs to explore a phenomenon using replication logic and provide a robust basis for theory building.

This study presents a holistic view of the OI process in SMEs and illustrates the crucial role of entrepreneurs. The study provides a better understanding of how OI can help entrepreneurs sense and seize entrepreneurial opportunities by envisioning venture ideas and implementing business model innovation through the management of innovation partners.

The study emphasizes two critical roles of entrepreneurs in implementing OI in SMEs. First, the entrepreneur can be the instigator of strategic change, and second, he/she can orchestrate the innovation network. The findings emphasize that OI helps avoid knowledge corridors at the venture idea stage, leading to a (re)structuring of the business model and the emergence of a network of innovation partners, which should be managed hands-on. This study discusses in detail the two crucial roles of entrepreneurs.

The purpose of this paper is to outline a range of short‐ to medium‐term recession‐specific strategies designed to drive growth and ensure that a company survives this downturn and emerges from it competitively advantaged.

The paper examines recession‐specific strategies designed to drive growth and ensure that a company survives.

Even after the eventual economic recovery, heightened uncertainty and volatility will remain permanent features of the business environment. As a result, resilience – the ongoing ability to anticipate and adapt to critical strategic shifts – will become an increasingly important driver of future competitive advantage. Given the likelihood that the strategic environment will remain uncertain even after the recovery, the company must institutionalize the lessons learned during the downturn. And go further to adjust the customer offering and business practices (new services, new features, new pricing models, enter or exit markets, band with other businesses in cooperative relationships).

The consensus is growing among economists, business leaders, and governments that the world is in the midst of a prolonged slowdown of unpredictable duration and that even when the upturn comes, the post‐crisis strategic and operating environment will almost certainly be quite different.

The authors warn that some of the classic strategies for gaining competitive advantage – for instance, focusing on scale – have been losing their power. Senior managers need to heed these warnings when they review their growth and survival plans.

Business model (BM) canvases have been used in educational institutions and business incubators for over a decade to assist students and start-up entrepreneurs in developing their business projects. Given the urgency of tackling sustainability challenges, several tools have emerged to stimulate sustainable business modeling (SBM). However, these tools are often too complex for nonexperts in business modeling or sustainability, and thus insufficiently user-friendly for educational contexts. This study aims to address this pedagogical gap by describing the design process of the responsible business model canvas (RBMC).

The authors relied on a design science research methodology involving the active participation of end users, entrepreneurship educators, business coaches and external partners. The authors proposed four criteria and ten subcriteria to analyze existing SBM canvases based on their user-friendliness and to design the initial prototype of the RBMC. The RBMC was subsequently tested in various settings, including classroom assignments and business incubation programs, with over 1,000 university students. The tool was refined and assessed throughout the development process, incorporating feedback from focus groups with start-up entrepreneurs.

Through the development process, the authors created a user-friendly tool to help novice student and start-up entrepreneurs integrate sustainability into their BMs: the RBMC. The canvas consists of 14 building blocks grouped into four areas: consistency (mission, vision, values), desirability (value propositions, customer segments, users and beneficiaries, customer relationships and channels), feasibility (key activities, key resources, key partners and stakeholders and governance) and viability (cost structure, revenues streams, negative impacts and positive impacts).

The research methods and user-friendliness criteria in this study can be applied in other contexts to design tools to support sustainable entrepreneurship education. While the RBMC is currently being used in several educational institutions throughout the world, its impacts in different pedagogical and cultural settings require further validation.

The RBMC is a user-friendly tool to introduce students and start-up entrepreneurs to SBM. It helps raise users’ awareness about sustainability concerns, challenging them to consider issues they might have otherwise overlooked. Some participants even shifted their outlook and were motivated to develop a long-term vision integrating compensatory, mitigative or corrective actions into their BMs.

The RBMC is the outcome of a balanced approach that combines both pragmatic (i.e. user-friendliness) and normative (i.e. sustainability) perspectives. It provides users with a systematic approach for integrating and applying sustainability issues in their business projects.

The aim in this paper is to describe and explain the flexibility offered by different business models adopted by different firms as they strive to achieve higher levels of business performance.

Cross‐sectional research is used to investigate a matched pair sample of 20 high‐performing and 20 low‐performing firms in the UK. The relationship between business model architectures and focus are examined and their implications for flexibility are illustrated and discussed.

The flexibility offered by different business models is explored through the way organisations select and integrate three inter‐related elements to devise flexible business models, i.e. network influence, transactional relationships, and corporate ownership. Affected by situated practices in each business network and the market position or business size, companies select and integrate various configurations of these elements to respond to the constantly evolving demands of end‐customers.

Although based upon a cross‐sectional analysis of a matched pair sample, the concept of “flexible business models” has far wider managerial implications. The efficiency of the proposed approach is achieved through the reduction into three inter‐related elements that allow flexible configuration and re‐adjustment.

Companies can use the flexible business model approach to examine their own selection and integration of network influence, transactional relationships and corporate ownership and scrutinise their flexibility and performance in the marketplace.

The contribution of this paper is the development of the flexible business models concept, based on an empirical investigation of firms in the UK.