Paolo Aversa

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at King's College London

Until recently, scholars have customarily lumped multiple dimensions of environmental change into single constructs, and usually ascertained that the more the context changes, the more value firms derive from higher levels of exploration. In sync with more recent studies focusing on specific dimensions of change, in this paper we borrow theoretical...

Many companies today are operating several business models at once. But despite the potential that business model diversification has for generating growth and profit, executives need to carefully assess the strategic contributions of each element of their business model portfolio.

Despite the critical role of regulations on competition and innovation, little is known about firm responses and related effects on performance under regulatory contingencies that are permissive or restrictive. By longitudinally investigating hybrid cars competing in the Le Mans Prototype racing (LMP1), we counter-intuitively suggest that permissiv...

The rise of the Internet has seen traditional incumbent producers challenged by competition from digital entrant platforms. It is unclear, however, how those two types of actors—which are in competition but also mutually dependent—can co-exist in the new platform-based ecosystem. This paper sheds light on that pivotal phenomenon by connecting the t...

In spite of the striking evidence that many firms run multiple business models, scholars and practitioners still lack a comprehensive understanding about business model portfolio dynamics, particularly when this happens in the digital space. Prior research on business model diversification tends to focus on supply-side complementarities, such as a...

Sports contexts are increasingly used in management research to test and develop theory and explore managerially relevant phenomena. This growth in publications is likely driven by a series of advantages that sports data confers to management researchers. However, such positive features are not a panacea, as several drawbacks are also associated wi...

Previous research on the genesis of industrial clusters has focused on macrolevel (e.g., agglomeration economies and institutions) or mesolevel explanatory factors (e.g., serial entrepreneurship, spin-offs). Less studied are the microfoundations of cluster genesis, intended as the individual- and group-level processes underlying such macrolevel out...

This article examines the origin of the “Prancing Horse” symbol and its role in helping the racing team Ferrari survive under the fascist regime in Italy. Enzo Ferrari, the company’s founder, adopted the coat of arms of Francesco Baracca, the most renowned Italian military aviator during World War I, as the logo of his new racing team. By repurposi...

The rise of the “digital age” presents unique challenges for firms entering new markets and deciding “where” to compete – a pivotal topic in corporate strategy. Particularly, it is not clear what the opportunities and implications are for digital new entrants as they position their disruptive business offerings in the category system, in particular...

Recently, the diffusion of digital machines has further enhanced firms’ manufacturing flexibility, but also opened questions on potential challenges and implications in the production process. To respond to these timely issues, we adopt a behavioral perspective and comparatively explore how four different types of digital machines—characterized by...

Digital piracy challenges firms by reducing revenues and shifting consumption habits. Recently, some firms have successfully leveraged business models against piracy, but the understanding about this phenomenon still lacks depth and structure. This study examines the characteristics of digital piracy in some of the most affected industries, present...

In manufacturing environments, strategic management scholars have defined ‘strategic peripheries’ as organizations dedicated mainly to supply activities. The term ‘periphery’ implies the traditionally marginal role that these firms play compared with ‘core’ or ‘focal’ firms, which are mostly leading assemblers/buyers. However, when peripheral firms...

Decision support systems (DSS) are sophisticated tools that increasingly take advantage of big data and are used to design and implement individual- and organization-level strategic decisions. Yet, when organizations excessively rely on their potential the outcome may be decision-making failure, particularly when such tools are applied under high p...

If your industry is in turmoil, your instinct might be to double down on innovation so that your firm can get ahead of all the change. But new research from a team led by a professor from City University of London suggests you might want to hold off. Its study of innovation in Formula 1 racing showed that when car technologies were undergoing rapid...

In manufacturing environments, strategic management scholars have defined ‘strategic peripheries’ as organizations dedicated mainly to supply activities. The term ‘periphery’ implies the traditionally marginal role that these firms play compared with ‘core’ or ‘focal’ firms, which are mostly leading assemblers/buyers. However, when peripheral firms...

Despite the undeniable evidence that firms often engage with more than one business model at the same time, research has mainly overlooked the implications of diversification into business model portfolios. This paper offers a review and theoretical conceptualization of business model portfolios and distinguishes it from other traditional types of...

The concept of modularity has gained considerable traction in technology studies as a way to conceive, describe, and innovate complex systems, such as product design or organizational structures. In the recent literature, technological modularity has often been intertwined with business model innovation, and scholarship has started investigating ho...

We investigate the business model configurations associated with high and low firm performance by conducting a qualitative analysis of firms competing in Formula One racing. We find that configurations of two business models—one focused on selling technology to competitors, the other one on trading human resources with competitors—are associated wi...

Despite growing evidence that firms often engage in more than one business model at a time, strategy research has overlooked the implications of this practice for diversification into business model portfolios. This paper offers a theoretical conceptualization of business model portfolio diversification and defines its conceptual independence from...

In manufacturing environments, strategic management scholars have defined ‘strategic peripheries’ as organizations dedicated mainly to supply activities. The term ‘periphery’ implies the traditionally marginal role that these firms play compared with ‘core’ or ‘focal’ firms, which are mostly leading assemblers/buyers. However, when peripheral firms...

The relationship between business models and firm performance is only partially understood, especially when firms use multiple business models simultaneously (i.e., adopt configurations of business models). In this paper, we investigate the relationship between business model configurations and firm performance in a technology-based environment by...

We investigate the relationship between TMT variety and the extent of a firm’s alliance portfolio. Prior research has established that TMT variety permits a firm to outsource more of its innovation to suppliers. Prior research has also established that TMT variety makes a firm more capable of innovating in house. To date, it is unclear how these ap...

Until recently, scholars have customarily lumped multiple dimensions of environmental change into single constructs, and usually ascertained that the more the context changes, the more value firms derive from higher levels of exploration. In sync with more recent studies focusing on specific dimensions of change, in this paper we borrow theoretical...

Firms often need to adapt to new contextual conditions, given that shifts in their environment tend to erode the value of their current knowledge and practices. Recent literature emphasizes both the need for firms to change and adapt, as well as the inherent risks in these efforts. In this paper we test the consequences of firms’ different strategi...

In my forthcoming article 'Innovate or imitate: The role of collective beliefs in competences in competing firms' I credit Peter Drucker with the assertion that innovation is the basis for wealth creation. It is true that innovation is often seen as the basis for improving not only the performance of firms, but also economies and society more gener...

Absorptive capacity, defined as the organizational capability to identify, absorb and exploit knowledge, is one of the most discussed topics in the management literature. Yet, its complex nature makes it almost impossible to empirically test it. This paper develops SimAC, an agent-based simulation tool that enables studying and comparing different...

Although literature affirms that reaching critical size is relevant to outperform competitors, developing absorptive capacity through alliances enables small suppliers to sustain their innovation development and, hence, competitiveness without the need to become big. However, when AC is developed through investments in asset specificity, the capabi...

In technology-based industries, alliances between assemblers (core/focal firms) andsuppliers (peripheral firms) are common practice to foster innovation and relationalrents. Assemblers mostly drive innovation in the early phases of an industry life cycle,but as products become more complex, the locus of innovation shifts to suppliers.Despite the in...

Literature showed that, among others, three of the most critical issues concerning absorptive capacity are (1) the proliferation of inconsistent theoretical contributions; (2) the lack of dynamic interpretations of learning processes; (3) the lack of empirical studies testing the whole theoretical model in a dynamic perspecive. After advancing a sy...