Innovations in Business Model and Strategy

Abstract

Marketing and strategy scholars have long conceptualised business models, generating separate and substantial literatures on this subject matter. The ‘business model’ concept is very much in vogue, with practitioner and conceptual analyses originating in theories of value chains, value systems and strategic positioning, resource-based theory,1 the notion of Schumpeterian creative destruction, strategic network theory and transaction costs economics,2 among others. This is a voluminous, diverse and growing field, in spite of its late arrival in academic thought3 and the lack of consensus about the meaning of the concept. Definitions of what constitutes and describes business models most accurately vary, and the concept remains somewhat unclear.4 A business model is also seen at times as a set of related components and strategies used to generate and grow resources and offer customers good value. Mitchell and Coles5 view it as ‘a way of organizing’ which facilitates service provision.