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Business model innovation –

state of the art and future
challenges for the field
Patrick Spieth1,2, Dirk Schneckenberg3 and
Joan E. Ricart4
1
Innovation and Technology Management Department, University of Kassel, Nora-Platiel-Str. 4, 34109
Kassel, Germany. spieth@uni-kassel.de
2
EBS Business School, Rheingaustr. 1, 65375 Oestrich-Winkel, Germany. patrick.spieth@ebs.edu
3
Strategic Management Department, ESC Rennes School of Business, 2 rue Robert d’arbrissel, 35065
Rennes, France. dirk.schneckenberg@esc-rennes.fr
4
Strategic Management Department, IESE Business School, University of Navarra, Av. Pearson 21,
08034 Barcelona, Spain. ricart@iese.edu

Business model innovation is receiving increased attention in corporate practice and

research alike. We propose in this article a role-based approach to categorize the literature
and argue that the respective roles of explaining the business, running the business, and
developing the business can serve as three interrelated perspectives to present an overview
of the current business model innovation field and to accommodate the selected contribu-
tions of this special issue. We refer to contributions from entrepreneurship, innovation and
technology management, and corporate strategy to explicate the three elaborated perspec-
tives and to summarize the main contents of the special issue articles. We conclude by
reflecting on main theoretical challenges for studies on business model innovation which
stem from the uncertain boundaries of the phenomenon, and we propose some theoretical
stances and analytic levels to develop future avenues for research.

1. Introduction as ‘a consistent and integrated picture of a company

and the way it generates revenues and profit’ (Yunus

T he business model phenomenon has moved in

recent years from a complementary reflection of
corporate strategy, in which it represents the logic of
the firm to propose customer value and to set up a
viable revenue and cost structure for value capture
(Teece, 2010), into the focus of attention of manage-
ment practitioners and scholars alike. Business
models have emerged as an important means for
firms to ‘commercialize new ideas and technologies’
(Chesbrough, 2010, p. 354). They provide ‘the organ-
ization’s configurational enactment of a specific
opportunity’ (George and Bock, 2011, p. 102) as well
et al., 2010, p. 312). While business models are tra-
ditionally concerned with firm-level value creation
and capture, business model innovation poses in
addition questions about novelty in customer value
proposition and about respective logical reframing
and structural reconfigurations of firms. Academic
attention paid to business model innovation has also
sharply increased in recent years (Schneider and
Spieth, 2013). Business model innovation can be
defined as ‘the discovery of a fundamentally different
business model in an existing business’ (Markides,
2006, p. 20), or as ‘the search for new business logics

© 2014 RADMA and John Wiley & Sons Ltd 237

Patrick Spieth, Dirk Schneckenberg and Joan E. Ricart
of the firm and new ways to create and capture value
for its stakeholders’ (Casadesus-Masanell and Zhu,
2013, p. 464). The rise of business models and busi-
ness model innovation as focal points in the current
research agenda is reflected by a range of recent
special issues and by an exponential increase of
related articles in peer-reviewed academic journals
(Zott et al., 2011). Academic conferences and man-
agement workshops on business model and business
model innovation have likewise experienced a
strongly growing demand for participation.
Despite these high levels of interest and attention
that have recently been paid to business model inno-
vation, the phenomenon still represents ‘a slippery
construct to study’ (Casadesus-Masanell and Zhu,
2013, p. 480). This fuzziness of the phenomenon is
caused by inconsistencies in the conceptual frame-
work of business models itself, which resides some-
where between economics and business strategy
without possessing a solid theoretical anchoring in
either field (Teece, 2010). As extant literature has so
far failed to converge different approaches for con-
ceptualizing business models into a common theo-
retical framework (Zott et al., 2011), there is in
consequence no safe grounding for the study of busi-
ness model innovation (Spieth et al., 2013). This
situation of business model innovation as an emer-
gent and so far not clearly delimited phenomenon,
which is becoming at the same time highly relevant
for business practice, is consequently providing the
research community with an exciting research oppor-
tunity. We like to provide with this special issue a
further step for the investigation of business model
innovation. Without claiming to represent a compre-
hensive view, we outline in this introductory article a
current perspective on business model innovation,
and we develop three interrelated perspectives to
accommodate the selected special issue articles.
These below detailed perspectives of ‘explaining the
business’, ‘running the business’ and ‘developing the
business’ refer to contributions from entrepreneur-
ship, innovation and technology management, and
corporate strategy and serve as three broad categories
that study business model and business model inno-
vation as either research subjects or as concepts to
investigate inherent phenomena within these wider
categories.
2. Current perspectives on business
model innovation
Previous reviews of the literature on business models
have attempted to categorize business model innova-
tion research in different ways. Among those, Morris
238 R&D Management 44, 3, 2014
et al. (2005) define three general categories – eco-
nomic, operational and strategic – to cluster the
various definitions in accordance to their major
emphasis. Zott et al. (2011) classify the existing lit-
erature in accordance with their main focus area of
explanation: e-business and use of information tech-
nology, strategic issues, and innovation and technol-
ogy management. Perkmann and Spicer (2010)
identify transactional structures, value extracting
devises and mechanisms for organizational structur-
ing as dominant business model conceptions. Demil
and Lecocq (2010) differentiate between static and
transformational approaches of the business model
concept. George and Bock (2011) distinguish six
broad themes that business models commonly reflect
on: organizational design, the resource-based view,
narrative and sensemaking, the nature of innovation,
the nature of opportunity and transactive structures.
Schneider and Spieth (2013) categorize existing lit-
erature on business model innovation in three
streams of research: (1) prerequisites of conducting
business model innovation, (2) elements and process
of business model innovation, and (3) effects
achieved through business model innovation.
While all of these classifications contribute to
achieve a better understanding of the business model
concept, we argue that in order to further develop and
unite the various understandings of a business model,
it is essential to focus on the roles and functions
assigned to the concept. As the interest in the concept
of business models arose in response to a variety of
different and partly unrelated challenges (e.g. new
ways of doing business, rapid technological develop-
ments and new forms of value creation), the interest
in the concept is naturally based on distinct motiva-
tions. Paying explicit tribute to these motivations
therefore appears to be essential to build common
categories among the extant base of business model
definitions.
To identify relevant categories, one can use the
driving forces behind the interest in business models
to distinguish common patterns concerning the
authors’ interest in the concept. Thereby, three major
roles assigned to business models as underlying
motivations for engaging in business model research
can be identified: (1) explaining the business, (2)
running the business and (3) developing the business.
Explaining the business summarizes a firm’s
response to the need of being capable of explaining
how an existing or future company or business
stream is to generate profit. The target audience of
this category includes external shareholders of the
firm, such as investors, media, customers or partners,
as well as internal employees (e.g. Stewart and Zhao,
2000; Amit and Zott, 2001; Magretta, 2002; Morris
© 2014 RADMA and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

et al., 2005; Shafer et al., 2005; Fiet and Patel, 2008;
Baden-Fuller and Morgan, 2010; Heikkilä and
Heikkilä, 2010; Moingeon and Lehmann-Ortega,
2010; Perkmann and Spicer, 2010; Wirtz et al., 2010;
Casadesus-Masanell and Ricart, 2011; Cavalcante
et al., 2011; Achtenhagen et al., 2013; McNamara
et al., 2013).
Running the business compromises the operational
roles assigned to business models. Addressing
employees, managers and external partners likewise,
a business model is understood to address operational
aspects such as processes, linkages or structures (e.g.
Afuah and Tucci, 2001; Afuah, 2004; Zott and Amit,
2007, 2008, 2010; Amit and Zott, 2010; Camisón
and Villar-López, 2010; Abdelkafi et al., 2013;
Baden-Fuller and Haefliger, 2013; Chatterjee, 2013;
Huarng, 2013; Velamuri et al., 2013; Bogliacino,
Lucchese and Pianta, 2013; Velu and Stiles, 2013).
Developing the business addresses the strategic
function of the business model. In this category, a
business model’s function is defined as supporting
management in defining and developing the firm’s
strategy (e.g. Porter, 2001; Chesbrough and
Rosenbloom, 2002; Osterwalder, 2004; Osterwalder
et al., 2005; Baden-Fuller and Morgan, 2010;
Casadesus-Masanell and Ricart, 2010; Casadesus-
Masanell and Zhu, 2010, 2013; Gambardella and
McGahan, 2010; Lecocq et al., 2010; Plé et al., 2010;
Teece, 2010; George and Bock, 2011; Aspara et al.,
2013; De Reuver et al., 2013; Enkel and Mezger,
2013; Günzel and Holm, 2013; Kastalli and
Looy, 2013; Markides, 2013; Schneider and Spieth,
2013; Simmons et al., 2013).
Furthermore, existing business model definitions
can be clustered in accordance with the object they
are associated with by their authors – including
terms such as ‘outline’, ‘story’, ‘framework’, ‘set of
choices’ or ‘logic’. Thereafter, we have mapped each
cluster to the corresponding function category, result-
ing finally in the overview illustrated in Table 1.
While each of the three identified categories assigns
a clear objective to the business model construct, a
certain overlap among definitions remains, as some
definitions address more than one objective.
Explaining the business: With the emergence of
e-commerce, companies have developed new ways
of doing business. In particular, to convince potential
investors, firms were forced to be able to explain how
they would generate profits (Eisenmann, 2002).
Based on this initial situation, a range of definitions
emerged describing the business model, such as ‘a
statement of how a firm will make money and sustain
its profit stream over time’ (Stewart and Zhao, 2000,
p. 290); ‘a scale model of a new venture, which aims
at dem’onstrating its feasibility and worth to the part-
© 2014 RADMA and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
State of art and future challenges
ners whose enrolment is needed’ (Doganova and
Eyquem-Renault, 2009, p. 1568); an outline of ‘the
essential details of a firm’s value proposition for its
various stakeholders and the activity system the firm
uses to create and deliver value to its customers’
(Seddon, Lewis and Freeman, 2004, p. 429); ‘repre-
sentations that allow managers to articulate and
instantiate the value of new technologies’ (Perkmann
and Spicer, 2010, p. 265); a ‘description of the
mechanisms enabling it to create value through the
value proposition made to its clients, its value archi-
tecture, and to harness this value in order to trans-
form it into profits’ (Moingeon and Lehmann-Ortega,
2010, p. 271); an explanation of ‘how a venture is
expected to create a profit’; a reflection of ‘the opera-
tional and output system of a company, and as such
captures the way the firm functions and creates
value’ (Wirtz et al., 2010, p. 274); ‘a representation
of a firm’s underlying core logic and strategic
choices for creating and capturing value within a
value network’ (Shafer et al., 2005, p. 202); ‘an
abstraction of a business identifying how the business
makes money’ (Betz, 2002, p. 1); or as ‘stories that
explain how enterprises work’ (Magretta, 2002,
p. 87). Besides their use in external communication,
business models are also understood as ‘a fundamen-
tal statement of direction and identity’ (Nair, Palacios
and Ruiz, 2011, p. 46), and as ‘a reflection of the
firm’s realized strategy’ which might also be targeted
at company internal audiences.
Running the business: Providing guidance and
support to managing a firm’s operations appeared as
a second predominant function assigned to business
models in literature. The business model is under-
stood in this perspective as ‘the starting point for
planning operative business processes’ (Heikkilä and
Heikkilä, 2010, p. 12). The business model is per-
ceived to provide ‘an abstraction of the principles
supporting the development of the core repeated
standard processes necessary for a company to
perform its business’; as ‘the architecture of a firm
and its network of partners for creating, marketing
and delivering value and relationship capital to one or
several segments of customers in order to generate
profitable and sustainable revenue streams’
(Dubosson-Torbay, Osterwalder and Pigneur, 2002,
p. 7); as ‘an architecture of the product, service and
information flows’ (Timmers, 1998, p. 4); as ‘a
system that is made up of components, linkages
between components, and dynamics’ (Afuah and
Tucci, 2001, p. 3); as ‘a system of activities that
depicts the way a company “does business” with its
customers, partners and vendors’ (Amit and Zott,
2010, p. 2); as ‘a system of interdependent activities
that transcends the focal firm ad spans its boundaries’
R&D Management 44, 3, 2014 239
Patrick Spieth, Dirk Schneckenberg and Joan E. Ricart
Table 1. Roles and respective categories of business model definitions
Role Associated terms
(1) Explaining the business Abstraction
Description
Outline
Reflection
Representation
Statement
Story
(2) Running the business Activity system
Architecture
Framework/standard
Structural template/blueprint
Method
(3) Developing the business Approach
Design/plan
Logic
Model/conceptual tool
Recipe
Set of choices and
consequences
(Zott and Amit, 2010, p. 216); or as ‘the method by
which a firm builds and uses its resources to offer its
customers better value than its competitors’ (Afuah
and Tucci, 2001, p. 3). Furthermore, a business
model is associated with being a ‘blueprint of how a
company does business’ (Osterwalder et al., 2005,
p. 4); as a ‘a structural template of how a focal firm
transacts with customers, partners, and vendors’ (Zott
and Amit, 2008, p. 5); or as ‘the standard generated
by the corporation to organize its processes and tasks
with a specific internal configuration of its value
240 R&D Management 44, 3, 2014
Authors (examples)
Betz, 2002; Doganova and Eyquem-Renault, 2009; Huang,
et al., 2012; Cavalcante et al., 2011
Applegate, 2000; Weill and Vitale, 2001; Baden-Fuller and
Morgan, 2010; Moingeon et al., 2010; Sako, 2012;
Rodrigues et al., 2012; Desyllas and Sako, 2013; Fiet
and Patel, 2008
Seddon, Lewis, Freeman and Shanks, 2004a,b
Wirtz et al., 2010; Casadesus-Masanell and Ricart, 2011
Stewart and Zhao, 2000; Amit and Zott, 2001; Morris
et al., 2005; Shafer et al., 2005; Heikkilä and Heikkilä,
2010; Perkmann and Spicer, 2010
Stewart and Zhao, 2000; Nair, Palacios and Ruiz, 2011
Linder and Cantrell, 2000; Magretta, 2002; Haggège and
Collet, 2011
Hamel, 2000; Seddon, Lewis, Freeman and Shanks,
2004a,b; Amit and Zott, 2010; Zott and Amit, 2010
Timmers, 1998; Afuah and Tucci, 2001; Tapscott, 2000;
Dubosson-Torbay, Osterwalder and Pigneur, 2002;
Patzelt, zu Knyphausen-Aufsess and Nikol, 2008; Keen
and Williams, 2013
Afuah, 2003; Afuah, 2004; Wu, Guo and Shi, 2013;
Camisón and Villar-López, 2010
Amit and Zott, 2001; Osterwalder et al., 2005; Zott and
Amit, 2008; Cavalcante et al., 2011
Afuah and Tucci, 2001
Gambardella and McGahan, 2010; Christensen, Wells and
Cipcigan, 2013; Achtenhagen et al., 2013
Venkatraman and Henderson, 1998; Teece, 2010; George
and Bock, 2011; Baden-Fuller and Haefliger, 2013;
Trimi and Berbegal-Mirabent, 2012; Onetti et al., 2012;
Chatterjee, 2013
Linder and Cantrell, 2001; Chesbrough and Rosenbloom,
2002; Casadesus-Masanell and Ricart, 2010; Kuk and
Janssen, 2013; Teece, 2010
Porter, 2001; Chesbrough and Rosenbloom, 2002;
Osterwalder, 2004; Osterwalder and Pigneur, 2004;
Osterwalder et al., 2005; Lecocq et al., 2010; Sabatier
et al., 2010; Teece, 2010; George and Bock, 2011
Baden-Fuller and Morgan, 2010; Sabatier et al., 2010
Casadesus-Masanell and Ricart, 2010; Casadesus-Masanell
and Zhu, 2010; Plé et al., 2010
chain, manage its assets, realize transactions with
external agents, and determine the market in which it
intends to compete’ (Camisón and Villar-López,
2010, p. 302).
Developing the business: As a third major func-
tion, business models are defined to support the stra-
tegic development of firms, in particular to identify
opportunities and create sustainable competitive
advantages (Amit and Zott, 2001; Morris et al.,
2005); as ‘design of organizational structures’
(George and Bock, 2011, p. 99); as ‘design or archi-
© 2014 RADMA and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

tecture of the value creation, delivery, and capture
mechanisms it employs’ (Teece, 2010, p. 172); or as
‘an organization’s approach to generating revenue at
a reasonable cost, and incorporates assumptions
about how it will both create and capture value’
(Gambardella and McGahan, 2010, p. 263). The
business model is believed to ‘enact a commercial
opportunity’ (George and Bock, 2011, p. 99). A busi-
ness model is further understood to be the logic ‘for
creating value’ (Linder and Cantrell, 2000, p. 13); as
the logic ‘that connects technical potential with the
realization of economic value’ (Chesbrough and
Rosenbloom, 2002, p. 529); and as the general logic
‘of the firm, the way it operates and how it creates
value for its stakeholders’ (Casadesus-Masanell and
Ricart, 2010, p. 196). Furthermore, noticeable is the
increasing tendency to understand ‘the business
model [as] a set of committed choices that lays the
groundwork for the competitive interactions’
(Casadesus-Masanell and Ricart, 2010; Casadesus-
Masanell and Zhu, 2010, p. 1485; Plé et al., 2010).
Finally, the business model is understood in this third
perspective as a tool or concept ‘to position the value
proposition in the value chain’ (Sabatier et al., 2010,
p. 442); and as a concept ‘which helps to describe
an economic activity or potentially a framework’
(Lecocq et al., 2010, p. 214) and that contains a set
of objects, concepts and their relationships with the
objective to express the business logic of a specific
firm (Osterwalder and Pigneur, 2003; Osterwalder,
2004; Osterwalder et al., 2005).
We propose this role-based approach as an alter-
native view to conceptualize the phenomenon of
business models and to get a more concise grasp on
subsequent processes of business model innovation.
We are, however, aware that other alternatives are
evolving in the literature, and we do not yet foresee if
and to which degree these different alternatives might
be converging over time to a more coherent concep-
tual frame. We have, in consequence, to remain open
and integrative about future directions in the business
model innovation literature and should avoid closing
down the phenomenon-level debate in the scholarly
community at a premature stage. The contributions
in this special issue represent, in consequence, one
given instance in the evolving and exciting field of
how organizations create and handle business model
innovation.
3. Papers and themes in this
special issue
Our special issue has been generated by inviting and
selecting articles that have been previously submitted
© 2014 RADMA and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
State of art and future challenges
to the 2013 Conference of the European Academy
of Management (Istanbul, Turkey), the 2013 R&D
Management Conference (Manchester, United
Kingdom) and the 2013 International Society for
Professional Innovation Management Conference
(Helsinki, Finland), and by adding further submis-
sions that we received from the general call for
papers on business model innovation published in the
R&D Management journal. Following a rigorous
review process that engaged a wide range of expert
reviewers in the field, the below presented articles
were finally selected for publication by the special
issue editors. Adding to previous special issues on
this matter in Long Range Planning 2010 and 2013,
Strategic Organization in 2013 and the International
Journal of Innovation Management in 2013, we are
now proud to present the first R&D Management
issue, which is exclusively dedicated to studies on
business model innovation. In all of our conference
and publication activities, we position the business
model innovation topic in a triangle of three anchors:
strategy, innovation and entrepreneurship. While this
integrative framing leads in consequence to a hetero-
geneous set of manuscripts, it reflects at the same
time different facets and approaches in shedding
more light on business model innovation and consid-
ers responses to a variety of different und partly
unrelated challenges. We present the contributions
for our special issue along the three major motiva-
tions for engaging in business model research, which
we introduced in the previous section: (1) explaining
the business, (2) running the business and (3) devel-
oping the business.
3.1. Explaining the business
Denicolai, Tidd and Ramirez work on business
model innovations that involve the acquisition of
external resources, their integration with and adapta-
tion to internal capabilities, and the exploitation of
these novel combinations to create and capture value
in new ways. Based on a dataset of 310 firms from
four European countries, the authors adopt broader
measures of internal and external knowledge, which
include codified intangibles such as patents and
copyrights, and examine the effects the combinations
and interactions have on sales growth. By focusing
on internally developed and externally acquired
knowledge assets, the article provides a fine-grained
analysis and understanding of knowledge-based
sources for firm-level value creation and sheds new
light on the importance of the value creation archi-
tecture for the success of business model innovation
and subsequent firm growth.
R&D Management 44, 3, 2014 241
Patrick Spieth, Dirk Schneckenberg and Joan E. Ricart
3.2. Running the business
Miller, McAdam and McAdam provide an examina-
tion of the changing university business model using
a stakeholder perspective. The university model is
considered in this contribution as an activity system.
Based on an in-depth single case research that com-
bines observations, semistructured interviews and
complementary archival records, the authors show
that the university has undergone different stake-
holder stages with resultant changes in content,
structure and governance. Particularly, conflicting
objectives between each of the stakeholder groups
have led to the university business model evolving
not as a process of cocreation, but rather in a series of
transitions. The stakeholder lens in the case research
has led to the insight that interrelated relationships
between external and internal stakeholders have over
time collectively shaped the changing university
business model. The study provides in addition
further support for the inference that changes in the
external environment – in this case situated in a
public sector context and acts as driver for business
model innovation of organizations.
Wei, Yang, Sun and Gu concentrate on how tech-
nological innovation fits with business model design
to jointly impact firm growth. By using data from 176
Chinese firms, the authors show that exploitative
innovation and exploratory innovation fit with differ-
ent business model designs to promote firm growth.
In particular, the authors find that efficiency-centered
business model designs enhance negative effects of
exploitative innovation and reduce positive effects
of exploratory innovation, while novelty-centered
business model designs reduce negative effects of
exploitative innovation. The study, which is situated
in the context of an emerging economy, contributes
to our understanding of linkages between business
models and technological innovation processes of
firms by highlighting that corporate choices for either
favoring exploratory innovation or exploitative inno-
vation pathways impact the success of business
model designs.
3.3. Developing the business
Dmitriev, Simmons, Truong, Palmer and
Schneckenberg explore business model development
during the commercialization of innovations through
a inductive, theory-building case research, which
adds new insights to literature on sequential and
more interactive processes of business model devel-
opment. By analyzing evidence derived from
semistructured in-depth interviews and historical
data on longitudinal processes of business modeling
242 R&D Management 44, 3, 2014
in the four selected case firms, the authors show that
specific elements of business model development,
representative of the conceptualization of value and
organizing for value creation, need to be integrated in
a dynamic and cyclical process during commerciali-
zation processes of technology innovations. The
study findings concur with a process-oriented theory
perspective that emphasizes the importance of reci-
procity of activity and the complex everyday interac-
tions that go into ‘doing’, ‘imagining’ and ‘working
out’ business models.
Khanagha, Volberda and Oshri follow a similar
research design in their longitudinal, single case
research, but the focus of this study lies on exploring
interdependencies among strategy formulation, struc-
turing and business model innovation processes. The
case investigates Ericsson’s transition to a new busi-
ness model in the face of a major transformation in the
Information Technologies industry. Their findings
indicate a need for recursive iterations between differ-
ent modes of separated and integrated structures as
befits the emergent nature of strategic intent toward
the new business models. In particular, strategy for-
mation is found to be a collective experimental learn-
ing process revolving around a number of alternative
strategic intentions ranging from incremental evolu-
tion and transformation to complete the corporate
endeavor of replacing the existing business model.
4. Conclusion and future
research directions
The aim of this special issue is to further develop our
understanding of the emergent business model inno-
vation phenomenon. The fact that three inductive,
theory-building studies have finally been selected as
contributions into this special issue mirrors to a
certain degree the continuing challenge to constitute
clearly delimited theoretical foundations for business
model innovation in the literature. Business models
tend to be complex, as they represent boundary-
spanning entities that link dimensions of corporate
strategy, technological capabilities and innovation
processes of the firm. These multidimensional and
boundary-spanning characteristics make business
models equally attractive and slippery as study sub-
jects. As long as coherent dimensions and units of
analysis for business models are not clearly charac-
terized and differentiated, concurrent research on
business model innovation treads risky grounds. The
positive side of this situation is that the business
model innovation field provides plenty of interesting
avenues for further research. We therefore elaborate
on these avenues for future research and encourage
© 2014 RADMA and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

contributions that address the business model inno-
vation theme and provide new insights into interde-
pendencies between constituent sources for business
model innovation, investigate its enabling conditions
and organizational processes, and shed new light
on its effects for firm performance and competitive
capabilities. Consistent with our previously pre-
sented view, we organize this research agenda within
the categorization of the three distinct roles of busi-
ness models, being well aware that these categories
remain inclusive in their conceptual development and
are therefore partly interrelated and intersecting.
Let us begin with the category of ‘explaining the
business’. A common denominator in the literature is
the assumption that business model innovation has
a positive impact on the performance of firms.
However, we largely ignore organizational and envi-
ronmental antecedents for business model innova-
tion. This aspect relates, for example, to questions
about the role of organizational ambidexterity and
balancing explorative and exploitative phases in busi-
ness model innovation. It equally comprises cause–
effect relationships for business model innovation:
Do volatile environments drive business model inno-
vation of firms? Or does business model innovation
create environmental volatility? One additional point
of interest to be studied in more detail is the interplay
of technology push and market pull: How do firms
find synergies between those two business model
innovation drivers, and how can corporate leaders
bring them together in organizational strategy?
A second aspect we identify in the ‘explaining the
business’ perspective are processes and conditions
that lead to a successful recognition of opportunities
and adherent reconfiguration of resources to capture
market value. This aspect comprises modes of firm-
level and intrafirm collaboration for business model
innovation, and generates a set of intriguing question.
How can firms for example systematize business
model innovation as subject within their corporate
innovation frameworks and develop it as an
organizational capability? Which structural, mon-
etary and motivational measures are available and
appropriate to incentivize business model innovation
efforts at firm-level and in intrafirm collaboration?
Interesting is also the question about business model
portfolio management and business model innova-
tion: How can corporate leaders create legitimacy to
deviate the traditional market/technology focus of the
firm toward new business models, and how can they
reallocate existing corporate resources and processes
without causing potentially harmful internal conflicts
in the organization?
Another promising aspect for future research on
business model innovation is the cognitive agenda,
© 2014 RADMA and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
State of art and future challenges
which is linked to microfoundational sources of
dynamic capabilities and the field of behavioral strat-
egy. This aspect comprises, for example, the relation-
ship between cognition and business model
innovation, and the combination of analytic and
intuitive management skills for sensing and opportu-
nity recognition of the firm. Interdependencies
between specific leadership styles, cognitive modes
and business model innovation are equally interest-
ing. Opportunity recognition and processes of sense
making versus cognitive biases – such as escalation
of commitment, bounded rationality and path
dependencies of decision making – will almost cer-
tainly have an impact on processes of business model
innovation. And finally questions on strategic agility
and entrepreneurial/intrapreneurial actions arise:
Which capabilities, enabling factors and conditions
allow decision makers to experiment with and enact
new business models in organizations? What are
methods for reframing dominant logic in business
model innovation and counteracting not-invented-
here syndrome?
If we move toward the ‘running the business’ per-
spective, and in particular to the area of methods and
tools for business model innovation, the topic of busi-
ness model design is of special interest to practition-
ers. The business model canvas, which has been
developed with a design perspective in mind, is one
of the more popular representations and is nowadays
widely deployed in corporate practice. Despite this
practice-driven trend to apply visual and design-
informed tools to enhance strategic thinking about
business model innovation, we still have to learn a lot
about how processes of designing novel business
models inform the exploitation of emerging opportu-
nities in changing and volatile environments. Ques-
tions related to this topic focus on the inquiry of
potential connections between design and strategy
thinking for the practice of business model innova-
tion. Do techniques of product or process design have
the potential to inform value reflection and direc-
tional as well as functional decisions on business
model innovation? How is business model innovation
different from traditional, product or process-related
innovation processes? How can firms ideally create
supporting conditions and organize these types of
business model innovation processes with entrepre-
neurs and in established companies?
The impact of corporate culture on internal adop-
tion and implementation of business model innova-
tion is also bearing new questions for additional
inquiry in the field. This aspect includes the role of
different corporate functions, such as corporate
research and development, human resources, market-
ing, leadership, finance, etc., in business model inno-
R&D Management 44, 3, 2014 243
Patrick Spieth, Dirk Schneckenberg and Joan E. Ricart
vation, as well as organizational processes to
embrace business model innovation and to gain the
support of middle managers. How should managers
against this background organize cross-functional
firm-level collaboration and boundary-spanning
intrafirm partnerships for business model innovation?
In particular, the adoption and implementation aspect
generates additional questions on the role of corpo-
rate decision-making levels in business model inno-
vation. Are deliberate corporate-level decisions the
exclusive means to drive business model innovation
in firms, or is the process more organic and resulting
from many iterative and interwoven sequences of
unit- or group-level changes in the existing business
paradigm? If we concur to the assumption that inno-
vation at the level of corporate business models rep-
resent a substantial deviation from the inherited
dominant logic of the firm, a period of external inter-
vention might be necessary to initiate and drive
change. Here again further inquiry about the nature
and extent of external interventions and the implica-
tions of these change processes for corporate strategy
might be interesting to pursue.
As we finally move into the perspective of ‘devel-
oping the business’, we perceive the integration of
stakeholders into business model innovation and the
evolution of customer-centric business model innova-
tion and cocreation of value proposition as relevant for
further investigations. This aspect covers questions
related to engaging communities for sensing new
business opportunities, and technology-enhanced
interaction processes and levels for stakeholder inte-
gration into business model innovation. What is the
possible scope of cocreation in business model inno-
vation processes? And how can firms handle the fine
balance to foster openness and to selectively reveal
new ideas and sensitive knowledge for business model
innovation processes, which are unfolding in the dif-
ficult to control boundaries of ecosystems rather than
handleable firm-level contexts?
Stakeholders and in particular customers or
potential/new customers are without doubt an impor-
tant source for business model innovation. But value
creation is just one side of the coin. The other key
driver for business development is value capture. We
need in this context additional research focusing on
the question how firms can use business model inno-
vation to capture more value. This question requires
a more detailed understanding of firm-level reaction
to new business models in the industry, to proactive
competitor moves in the business model arena, and
even more in general to other claimants of value
moves. How can firms innovate or reinvent business
models to improve their capacity to capture addi-
tional value in the market? And what is the concrete
244 R&D Management 44, 3, 2014
nature of the connection between value creation and
value capture in business model innovation? We
think that interaction processes and effects in busi-
ness model innovation are important to the extent that
good designs in isolation can fail in the competition
with other value claimants. The whole industry archi-
tecture that needs to be taken into account for pro-
cesses of business model innovation, and both
boundaries and conditions in at least many industries
continue to evolve rapidly. Therefore, the research
agenda needs to consider the role as well as the
temporal and spatial position of the business model
innovation phenomenon in the design and evolution
of industry architectures.
The research avenues we presented above are sug-
gestive and certainly not complete. They partly
overlap in the respective perspectives we have pro-
posed and span at times across the three categories
‘explaining the business’, ‘running the business’ and
‘developing the business’. This partial inclusion of
observations and areas of inquiry into interrelated
categories serves as an indicator that these three tasks
cannot be separated in the practice of business model
innovation. As the field matures, we hope to be able to
see in the future more research that covers all three
categories. The management and successful innova-
tion of business model is consolidating as one funda-
mental source for competitive advantage in the 21st
century, and the concept represents one important
theoretical lens that enables us to refocus attention to
the dimension of entrepreneurship and innovation in
corporate strategy – a dimension that the field of
strategic management should not have neglected in
first instance to the degree it did. We conclude our
introductory article for this special issue by stating
that the field of business model innovation is still in an
emergent stage and provides a wide range of oppor-
tunities for scholars to undertake future studies. The
topic is relevant, the potential is great and the research
field merits further development.
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© 2014 RADMA and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
State of art and future challenges
Patrick Spieth is since 2013 an Interim Full Profes-
sor of Innovation and Technology Management at the
University of Kassel. He is since 2010 an Assistant
Professor of Innovation Management at the EBS
Business School, and has been in 2011 a Visiting
Assistant Professor at the W.P. Carey School of Busi-
ness, Arizona State University. He is a member of the
Scientific Committee at the International Society of
Professional Innovation Management (ISPIM), Head
(with Dirk Schneckenberg) of ISPIM Special Interest
Group (SIG) Business Model Innovation, and has
various special tracks on European Academy of Man-
agement (EURAM), ISPIM and R & D Management
conferences, publications as well as editorials on
business models and innovation management.
Dirk Schneckenberg is an Associate Professor of
Strategic Management at the ESC Rennes School of
Business. Research interests in organizational learn-
ing, knowledge management and innovation strat-
egies. He has published more than 40 refereed papers
in journals, books and conference proceedings. He is
Head (with Patrick Spieth) of ISPIM SIG Business
Model Innovation and has organized special business
model innovation tracks at EURAM and ISPIM
conferences.
Joan E. Ricart is the Carl Schrøder Professor of
Strategic Management and Chairman of the Strategic
Management Department at the IESE Business
School, University of Navarra. He was the Founding
President of the EURAM and President of the
Strategic Management Society. He has published
several books and articles in leading journals as
Strategic Management Journal, Harvard Business
Review, Journal of International Business Studies,
Econometrica or Quarterly Journal of Economics.
R&D Management 44, 3, 2014 247