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Paper info: Business Model Innovation: Origin, Evolution and Further Research

Title


Business Model Innovation: Origin, Evolution and Further Research

Authors


Raquel Soares
University of Porto
Portugal
Raquel Soares , Irina Saur-Amaral and João F. Proença

Place of Publication


The paper was published at the 32nd IMP-conference in Poznan, Poland in 2016.

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Abstract


Along the years several tools for business model innovation (BMI) have been proposed and some methodologies were tested. However, research paths did not integrate or link in significant ways and it does not seem they did evolve to consolidate a theory applicable to different contexts and different types of organizations. Scholars witnessed an increase in diversity, which was not duly complemented with an increase in consolidation of the concepts and methodologies used. The purpose of our research is to analyse whether this status quo has changed towards the development of a more consolidated theory and integration between scholars’ work in the field of BMI, using a conceptual approach. We use the systematic literature review methodology to obtain a sample of 316 papers about BMI indexed on ISI Web of Science - Current Contents Connect, published between 2000 and 2015. Results indicate that there has been a significant increase in the number of papers, journals as well as authors that published research on BMI, however we could not identify and specialized journal or author publishing regularly in BMI field. Top 5 journals are Long Range Planning, Harvard Business Review, Industrial Marketing Management, Management Decision and Research-Technology Management. Top 4 authors are Chesbrough, Zott, Amit and Casadesus-Masanell. Thematic analysis revealed that BMI has been extensively studied, however there rarely any cumulative knowledge effect between authors. Most researches were conceptual or qualitative, however not many constructs had been defined and tested to enable quantitative studies. Conceptual models are rare, and when they exist, they are mainly descriptive. Empirical components were based on case studies or archival analysis (e.g. analysis of web data) and have reduced inductive capacity. However, some quantitative studies were identified, based on secondary data. Future research directions are diverse and frequently ineffective, as they point towards areas of study that had already been addressed by previous scholars in the BMI field. The key findings expose that there had been little evolution in terms of integrating and theoretically developing the BMI field. We argue that there is a need to adopt the existing developed conceptual models, develop constructs and validate them with primary quantitative data collection and statistical analysis (regression or structural equation modelling) in different contexts. It is also needed to bring together the scholars working in BMI field so as to help them focus to test and use the existing knowledge, so as to perform more efficient research and allow consolidating the field.