Experimenting with Business Models for Sustainable Value-creation in Established Firms

This work is to extend studies of business model (BM) experimentation for sustainable value creation using three cases; here incumbent firms apply resources/networks in pursuit of sustainability-oriented BMs via corporate entrepreneurship. A focus query is: How do organisations apply experimentation to learn, signal and convince key resource holders to engage with shifts (from incumbent BMs) to more circular and servitized models? Research is to deliver insights into how BM microprocesses described for startups apply to incumbents, and if the roles/forms and influence of experimentation in modeling processes are similar. It is also to unravel how incumbents leverage and extend networks, strategic alliances with stakeholders, and the role of ecosystem partnerships, to support BMs. A process study approach is applied and analysis will triangulate data from in-depth interviews, participant-observation, and archival sources as processes are reconstructed, followed (>2 years), and subject to cross-case analysis. This early analysis finds incumbent cases with deliberate, purposeful experiments that aim to secure resources. However, context differs from earlier studies, as new BMs disrupt incumbent business logics and structures. Evidence is also found of ‘corporate entrepreneurs’ extending firm domain-competence via new combinations of internal resources and external value chain alliances. This analysis indicates that research extension in two areas is needed: a) analysis of where inertial effects and tensions with firm logics influence experimentation framing, and its role to secure resources; b) the role, and function of alliances with value-chain stakeholders and how they are influenced, shaped, and developed by experimentation processes.