Iterative business model innovation: A conceptual process model and tools for incumbents

Entrepreneurial alertness during severe crises: The effect on internal corporate venturing through business model innovation as a strategic response

“…This study's findings contribute to the innovation management literature on BMI, and particularly to the growing literature on the cognitive perspective on BMI, by offering new empirical knowledge on the critical strategic role of business owners' entrepreneurial alertness for BMI during severe crises (Andersen et al, 2022;Zhang et al, 2023;Zhao et al, 2021). Next to this, our robust results add to the literature on corporate venturing practices by revealing that BMI functions as a mediating mechanism that can significantly lead to the creation of a new ICV, which can be used as a tool for organizations to implement a new business model for the firm (Bachmann & Jodlbauer, 2023;Roundy et al, 2018). Lastly, with this, we contribute to the emerging literature on strategic corporate venturing by providing new understanding that highly alert business owners can strategically leverage ICVs for the successful implementation of a BMI during a severe crisis Weiss, Kanbach, Kraus, & Dabi c, 2023).…”

“…To pursue a successful organizational implementation of a BMI, different approaches have been conceptualized, but rigorous empirical insights on how firms, certainly during severe crises, implement a BMI are currently missing (Bachmann & Jodlbauer, 2023). The literature discerns between two main approaches, namely, firms that completely replace their previous business model with a new one and those that pursue an organizational implementation of a BMI in parallel with their old one (Bachmann & Jodlbauer, 2023;Filser, Kraus, Breier, Nenova, & Puumalainen, 2021;Hacklin, Björkdahl, & Wallin, 2018).…”

“…Because the challenges and risks of BMI are notably high for SMEs, and, on top of that, because business owners face high environmental uncertainty during severe crises, it can be expected that in such a context, the lion's share of SMEs will opt for parallel implementation (Bucherer et al, 2012). Indeed, because the innovative newly discovered opportunity on which the new business model rests will be completely novel to the firm, certainly during crises, business owners will want to mitigate the risks of BMI by implementing and exploiting the new business model in parallel in a specific dedicated independent organizational entity within the firm like an ICV (Bachmann & Jodlbauer, 2023;Bucherer et al, 2012). The reason for this is that, if the BMI does not deliver the expected outcome or if it appears to be unsuccessful, the firm retains the option of returning completely back to its usual business model (Frankenberger et al, 2013).…”

“…However, most works in the innovation management literature on BMI stop here, and rigorous empirical insights are missing on how firms, certainly during a crisis, implement a BMI (Bhatti, Santoro, Khan, & Rizzato, 2021;Geissdoerfer, Vladimirova, & Evans, 2018;Zhang et al, 2023). Different implementation approaches have been conceptualized, but implementing a BMI in parallel with the existing business model so that this can continue to exist has been theorized as a dominant approach (Bachmann & Jodlbauer, 2023). This is because, especially among SMEs, many BMI attempts fail, and such an approach can mitigate the high risks of BMI by giving business owners strategic flexibility to always return to the existing business model if the new business model turns out to be unsuccessful (Christensen, Bartman, & Bever, 2016;Frankenberger, Weiblen, Csik, & Gassmann, 2013).…”

“…This is because ICVs are independent exploratory vehicles through which firms attempt to effectively develop and exploit innovative new opportunities that fundamentally diverge from the firm's current ways of doing business . ICVs thus may foster the successful implementation of a BMI during a crisis, but explicit empirical evidence on this, together with knowledge on which skills are vital to launch ICVs, are lacking to date (Bachmann & Jodlbauer, 2023;Roundy et al, 2018).…”