Business models in global competition

The impact of R&D effort on business model innovation: Evaluating chain mediation through collaboration breadth and depth

Drawing on a novel theoretical framework, we explored the impact of research and development (R&D) effort on business model innovation via external collaboration breadth and collaboration depth in sequence. We empirically analyzed a sample of 94 Chinese innovative enterprises by applying hierarchical regression analysis and chain mediation analysis. The results indicate that R&D effort positively influences business model innovation. The influencing mechanism is that R&D effort positively affects external collaboration breadth, which in turn positively stimulates external collaboration depth, and ultimately benefits the implementation of business model innovation. Therefore, the breadth and depth of external collaboration play a chain-mediating role. The study develops a new framework for understanding the relationship between R&D effort, external collaboration, and business model innovation. It combines enterprises' internal behavior (R&D) and external behavior (collaboration) to establish an inside-out mechanism for predicting business model innovation. It enriches the theory of business model innovation. It also provides insights for managers and governments to optimize policies in innovation-driven development.

Industry 4.0 in international business research

The advent of Industry 4.0 promises to transform the global business landscape, the nature of markets and industries, and the way multinationals organize their operations as well as how and where they compete. These changes will have important - indeed profound - implications for IB scholarship. In this article, we explain Industry 4.0 and its distinguishing characteristics; discuss its organizational and strategic implications for multinationals; and outline the fundamental questions it raises for future IB research. To spur future analysis, we also present a conceptual foundation that articulates the new features, processes, and capabilities that support MNEs' pursuit of Industry 4.0-related opportunities surrounding digitalization, intelligence, technology, and innovation. We also discuss what Industry 4.0 means for IB research concerning social engagement, environmental sustainability, and international entrepreneurship. We elucidate how this new landscape shapes the extant IB literature and how future research can push it further along.

Do cross-national distances still affect the international penetration speed of digital innovation? The role of the global network effect

This paper provides an improved understanding of the internationalisation speed of innovation in a digital context. It integrates virtual distance into the previous Cultural, Administrative, Geographic, and Economic (CAGE) distance framework. By tracking the penetration in 43 target countries of a unique sample of 102 mobile apps available on Apple's App Store, cultural and economic distances still hinder the penetration speed of digital innovation in a focal country. However, geographic and administrative ones no longer have a significant effect. More importantly, distance does not always act as a barrier, with high virtual spaces promoting international penetration. Therefore, digital innovation developers may overcome challenges presented by cross-national distances by resorting to the global user network effect.

Research on the Impact of BMI on Enterprise Performance Based on the Antecedence of Risk Perception

Despite research showing that business model innovation (BMI) can enhance performance and create competitive advantages for small- and medium-sized businesses, these firms often do not achieve the expected outcomes. A business model can undergo irreversible fundamental changes due to Business Model Innovation (BMI), resulting in high levels of risk, uncertainty, and ambiguity. An analysis of 350 Chinese small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) was conducted to determine the impact of innovating a business model on firm performance. Based on BMI calculations, this study investigates whether organizational capabilities and growth strategies impact business performance. Even though BMI is not directly correlated with firm performance, growth in efficiency and novelty, organizational capacities, and revenue are all fully mediated by growth in those factors. Revenue growth, organizational capacity, and efficiency affect a firm’s performance. The model is proven to be valid by this study. In addition to providing guidelines on implementing BMI based on a company’s strategy, this study contributes to the existing literature on BMI efforts for small- and medium-sized businesses.

Efficient customer relationship management systems for online retailing: The investigation of the influential factors

In business processes, gaining customer satisfaction is vital for online retailing. In this way, it is necessary to identify the important factors for attracting and retaining customers in online retailing. Many factors are involved in efficient customer relationship management (CRM) systems. Their efficient implementation needs a deep focus on key customers, proper organization, knowledge management, technology, market, sales, ordering, support, and many other factors. Therefore, this paper examines the effective factors (including innovation management, market knowledge, competitive intelligence, entrepreneurship management, stakeholder management, project management, and business project management) on the efficiency of the CRM systems for online retailing. The data were collected from Digikala employees in Iran. Based on Morgan's table (Table A2 (Appendix)), 248 samples were randomly selected, and questionnaires were sent to employees, where 234 were fully answered. Research data and assumptions were evaluated using SPSS and PLS software. Research findings showed that innovation management (ß = .390, t = 6.426, p < .001), market knowledge (ß = .296, t = 4.864, p < .001), and competitive intelligence (ß = .115, t = 2.190, p < .005) directly impact the efficient CRM systems for online retailing. Stakeholder management (ß = .283, t = 9.713, p < .001), project management (ß = .229, t = 5.458, p < .001), and business project management (ß = .544, t = 11.351, p < .001) are also effective through the mediator variable of entrepreneurial management (ß = .143, t = 2.314, p < .005) on the efficient CRM systems for online retailing.

Dynamic Differential Game Strategy of the Energy Big Data Ecosystem Considering Technological Innovation

This study discusses how to create strategic value through energy big data and how to promote stakeholder interaction mechanisms in the evolution of the energy big data ecosystem. We use differential game methods to study the interaction between one power grid enterprise (PG) and one technology supplier (TS) under three different cost-sharing contracts: without cost-sharing contract, cost-sharing contract, and two-way subsidy contract. The effectiveness of the dynamic equilibrium strategies under different contracts is verified via numerical simulations. The results show that under the centralized decision scenario, the technological innovation investment, the degree of technological advancement of PG and TS, and the total profit of the supply chain system are superior to the decentralized decision scenario. The extent of TS technology innovation investment depends on the share rate of PG. Technology innovation investment and the profits of energy big data service supply chain stakeholders will increase with the sensitivity coefficient of technological advancement. Compared with contracts without cost-sharing and with cost-sharing, the two-way subsidy contract can provide the Pareto optimal solution for the investment trajectory of technological innovation and long-term profits. Theoretically, this study reveals a new perspective in the research on the relationship between power grid enterprises and technology suppliers under dynamic technology innovation. In practice, this study facilitates power grid enterprises and technology suppliers to form a closer cooperative relationship in the energy big data ecosystem. More importantly, it is helpful for power grid enterprises to make optimal transaction decisions at different stages of energy big data ecosystem evolution.

Scaling digital solutions for wicked problems: Ecosystem versatility

Digital solutions are increasingly used to address "wicked problems" that are locally embedded but require global approaches. Scaling these solutions internationally is imperative for their success, but to date we know little about this process. Using a qualitative case study methodology, our paper analyzes how four digital solutions driven by the United Nations are built and how they scale internationally. These solutions address wicked problems through artificial intelligence, blockchain, and geospatial mapping, and are embedded in networks of partners which evolve during scaling to create unique ecosystem roles and configurations. We identify different ecosystem roles and find that the specific properties of digital solutions - modularity, generativity and affordances - enable either adaptation or replication during scaling. Building on these insights, we derive a typology of four different types of international scaling, which vary in their ecosystem versatility (how the ecosystem changes across locations) and the local adaptation of the application (the problems the solution addresses). This study presents a new way to examine the replication and adaptation dilemma for ecosystems and extends internationalization theory to the digital world.

The Energy Company Business Model and the European Green Deal

The research problem addressed in this article concerns the formation of a business model in an energy company as a consequence of the European Green Deal. The paper seeks answers to three questions: (1) What is the significance of the European Green Deal for the business model of the examined energy company? (2) Which elements of the business model of the studied energy company take the form of sustainable ones? (3) In what direction is the business model of the analysed energy company evolving? The subject of the study is the business model of the Tauron Capital Group. The business model is analysed in the context of the requirements for climate protection formulated in the European Green Deal. A single case study was used. As a result of the study, two research statements were adopted: (1) Economic regulations in the area of the European Green Deal lead to changes in the business model of the examined energy company. (2) The examined energy company through the implementation of sustainable business practices aims to achieve sustainable production. The current activities of the Tauron Capital Group are focused on improving energy efficiency, circular economy principles and renewable energy sources.

The Impact of Customer Experience and Customer Engagement on Behavioral Intentions: Does Competitive Choices Matters?

The study aims to analyze behavioral intentions influenced by customer engagement, experience, and identification moderated by competitive choices in the granite sector of Pakistan. The study has been carried out through primary data analysis of cross-sectional approach in the transition to a sustainable economy. In total, 400 questionnaires were distributed, for which only 216 were filled and usable with a response rate of 54%—collected data from the production managers and units. In contrast, missed mine holders and labor analyzed the data in SPSS and AMOS to run various tests, i.e., reliability, correlation analysis, regression, moderation regression, and confirmatory factor analysis. The study findings indicate a positive and significant relationship and effect among the variables. The reviews might contain some biases. Therefore, this study recommended adopting a probability sampling technique for future studies. The study results in a positive manner indicating customer service involvement as a significant factor in behavioral intention despite competitive options.

A week is a long time in a pandemic: learning strategy and survival insights from a micro-enterprise owner

Purpose

This article explores the value of engaging a hybrid learning strategy in a micro-enterprise setting when responding to a global pandemic. The research question asks: “Does a hybrid learning strategy enhance a micro-enterprise's response to extreme events?”.

Design/methodology/approach

A micro-enterprise owner–manager (OM) reflects on their experience running a business during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, which resulted in the complete decimation of the organization’s revenue stream in early 2020. Captured in conversation with an academic peer, these practitioner insights provide valuable case evidence relating to micro-enterprise response to extreme commercial events, such as a global pandemic.

Findings

The journey from initial survival-mode to emergent market opportunity recognition and subsequent growth is recorded. The paper contributes to the limited research on the impact of learning strategy plans on micro-enterprise crisis response strategies and provides insights into the value of engaging a hybrid learning strategy when responding to a significant external business shock.

Originality/value

Drawing from these insights, the authors offer a literature-informed framework from which to consider the dynamics of an adaptive strategic response in a micro-enterprise setting, offering a means through which micro-enterprises can plan for and respond to extreme events in the future.

Optimization of Production Decisions Under Resource Constraints and Community Priorities

The current paper proposes analytical solution of the problem of optimal allocation of resources in the game of two parties, based on the production function of Cobb-Douglas with constant returns under changing scale of production. The Edgeworth box is used to derive the main scientific findings of this research, namely: the analytic representation of Contract Curve; Community indifference curve, a production possibility frontier curve under Cobb-Douglas production function, analytical representation of the solution of maximization income in solving resource allocation problem. The proposed technique is more suitable for practical applicability compared with prevailing theoretical resource allocation models based on Cobb-Douglas production function.

EFFECT OF LEADERSHIP ON BMI AND COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE OF SMES

This study investigated the relationships between transformational leadership (TL), entrepreneurial leadership (EL), business model innovation (BMI) and competitive advantage, as well as the role of environmental uncertainty in these relationships. The importance of BMI and leadership style for the firms and the gaps identified in literature motivated the need for this paper. Previous literature has not fully explained in detail the antecedents of BMI or how BMI improves competitive advantage of organisations. Thus, an empirical model was used to analyse data gathered from a survey of 474 small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from several sectors in Greece. The findings reveal the contribution of leadership styles on BMI, the direct contribution of TL and EL on competitive advantage, as well as the contribution of BMI in competitive advantage in all responding SMEs, those SMEs with low scores of business environmental uncertainty and those SMEs with high scores of business environmental uncertainty.

A general framework of digitization risks in international business

Digital global connectivity offers multinational enterprises new opportunities, but it also brings unique risks, an area not yet well examined in international business. This article presents an organizational information-processing framework, which elucidates what (risk types and sources), how (risk assessing and managing), and whom (vulnerable firms) these risks relate to, in a dialectical manner that seeks to combine theoretical insights and managerial actions. We focus on three types of risks (digital interdependence, information security, and regulatory complexity) that MNEs uniquely face, and explain within-country and cross-country risk drivers. We document variances among MNEs in exposure to these risks, proposing that information flow intensity, geographic diversity, international strategy, and global platform participation carry strong implications on the firm's risk exposure and response. Finally, this framework offers actions essential for MNEs, individually and collectively, to manage digital risks, emphasizing processes of building and deploying digital intelligence in pursuit of transnational resilience for cross-border activities that become increasingly digitally connected.

Multidexterity—A New Metaphor for Open Innovation

Open innovation will have an important role to play in recovering from the aftermath of the coronavirus and it has already made a crucial contribution. The prism of COVID-19 (“COVID” hereafter) has made more vivid both the complexity and unpredictability of managing innovation. This article considers why today’s open, intrinsically unpredictable business environments require updated theories for managing innovation. Concept formation lies at the heart of all social science progress and in this paper, we propose a new concept to accurately reflect the turbulence and complexity of managing open innovation in a post-COVID world. We argue that the innovator’s dilemma—a still influential argument that suggests exploiting current resources necessarily reduces the likelihood of successful exploration for new resources—is an increasingly problematic theoretic anchor. Furthermore, the prescription based on this line of thinking that organizational leaders should foster ambidextrous capabilities is increasingly suspect as leadership is more broadly shared and organizational processes become less easily dichotomized and controllable. We argue that the operating context for organizations is now so complex and ambiguous that it is time to revisit and revise the widely accepted concept of “ambidexterity” and we describe the updated and expanded construct as Multidexterity. “Multidexterity” is the organizational ability to simultaneously carry out multiple search and selection activities based on diverse strategic logics and levels of knowledge to generate a portfolio of innovative outcomes. We describe a number of case studies of extreme and unique collaboration to underpin our revised concept. Our paper reveals the advantages of the updated view, outlining the fresh insights it can generate. We conclude by setting out an agenda for future research and suggesting that joint empirical research by academics and practitioners is needed to further develop this approach to innovation.

Multidexterity: Combining Competing Business Models in Transforming Economies

In an attempt to respond to recent calls for better understanding the coexistence of multiple business models, we develop the concept of ‘multidexterity’ – the ability to develop, nurture, and execute several distinctive BM strategies simultaneously across different levels and functions of the MNC and its host markets. To illustrate this approach, we describe a European healthcare firm entering the rapidly transforming economy of China and facing regulatory constraints and ambiguities in the application of industry standards. This situation is a generic challenge for MNCs entering rapidly transforming economies, which they help in turn to substantially alter and develop. We argue multidextrous business models are effective entry strategies for MNCs. They also help resolve two conceptual limitations in the BMI literature: (1) the problem of environmental contingencies and (2) the interrelatedness of factors at the macro, meso, and micro levels. We address these problems from a practice approach. We provide some implications for the concept of multidexterity and business models and address managerial challenges and prospects in developing multidextrous organizations.

The Role of MNE Subsidiaries in the Practice of Global Business Models in Transforming Economies

This study provides new insights into the role of subsidiary managers in the practice of global business models of multinational enterprises in transforming economies. Drawing on the global business model literature and through semi-structured interviews with a leading Norwegian maritime multinational enterprise in China, we have developed and critically explored a theoretical framework for uncovering how subsidiary managers understand and manage the tensions between the headquarters based in a western country and the subsidiaries based in a transforming economy. More specifically, when implementing the global business model in the transforming economy, subsidiary managers need to undertake effective management of structural, behavioural, and cultural tensions along with the global integration-local responsiveness dilemma. Subsidiary managers can contribute to solving structural tensions between the headquarters and subsidiary by undertaking effective market sensing and knowledge transfer activities to integrate the transforming economies into the MNE's global production networks. Meanwhile, they need to make effective relationship management to solve behavioural and cultural tensions.

Entrepreneurial ecosystems in an interconnected world: emergence, governance and digitalization

Achieving and sustaining growth depends on the effective work of multiple and interconnected actors—such as e.g. governments, the private sector, society, universities, entrepreneurs and many others—who build an ecosystem, i.e. a social and economic environment for innovative and entrepreneurial endeavors. The underlying idea is that firms do not just compete with each other through well-developed stand-alone strategies to achieve advantages over their rivals, uniquely relying on their own resources, knowledge, and capabilities, but rather base their business models on shared resources, network externalities, knowledge spill-overs, local endowments, and governmental support. This introductory article offers a wide array of topics, methods and fields of application within the field of entrepreneurial ecosystems as well as a theorizing about potential fruitful future areas of research within the field, concentrating on legitimation and identification processes in ecosystems, possibly culminating towards a meta-identity of the ecosystem.

Business models innovation in investment banks: a resilience perspective

Firms frequently change their business models in order to respond to internal and external challenges. This study aims to explore how investments banks adjust their business models in response to internal and external challenges. Based on a qualitative data from ten major investment banks operating in the largest financial market in the Middle East, we show that investment banks can achieve resilience by adjusting their business models through continuous activity changes in response to internal and external challenges. Specifically, investment banks adjust their business models through deploying alternative combinations of activities from a broad repertoire of activities. Within the same bank, divisions that respond to external challenges tend to sustain their performance, whereas resilient divisions that respond to both internal and external challenges tend to bounce back or achieve substantial increase in performance levels. This study contributes to the literature by proposing resilience as an alternative approach to business model innovation and by providing insight into how firms adjust their business models by altering specific activities in response to both internal and external challenges.

Designing Organizational Eco-Map to Develop a Customer Value Proposition for a “Slow Tourism” Destination

Despite the widespread agreement on the importance of customer value proposition (CVP) as one of the most critical aspects of business models (BM), little is known about how strategically valuable organizational resources may contribute to the transformation of CVP. This paper aims to develop and to test a new research framework: The organizational eco-map to explore how strategically valuable resources are underpinning a new customer value proposition of a focal company. Customer value proposition hence is an encapsulation of a strategic management decision on what the company believes its customers value the most and what it can deliver in a way that gives it a competitive advantage. Being a research-based paper, the topic is approached by theoretical analysis, conceptual development, and empirical justification. The presented organizational eco-map model encourages practitioners to grasp an exact relationship between strategically valuable resources of the organization and customer value proposition. Empirically, the paper examines the role of Latvian cultural resources in the forthcoming transformation of the customer value proposition for Riga Central Market of Latvia, a huge infrastructural establishment. Therefore, marketing practitioners will find new ways of understanding customers’ value creation for a “slow tourism” destination to develop marketing strategies to engage cultural resources of suppliers with their customers’ consumption processes to enhance better customer satisfaction.