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Future ecosystem business model tool: Design science and field test in the efuel ecosystem towards the sustainability transition
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This study ventures into the dynamic realm of ecosystem orchestration for industrial firms, emphasizing its significance in maintaining competitive advantage in the digital era. The fragmented research on this important subject poses challenges for firms aiming to navigate and capitalize on ecosystem orchestration. To bridge this knowledge gap, we conducted a comprehensive qualitative meta-analysis of 31 case studies and identified multifaceted orchestration practices employed by industrial firms. The core contribution of this research is the illumination of five interdependent but interrelated orchestration practices: strategic design, relational, resource integration, technological, and innovation. Together, these practices are synthesized into an integrative framework termed the "Stirring Model," which serves as a practical guide to the orchestration practices. Furthermore, the conceptual framework clarifies the synergy between the identified practices and highlights their collective impact. This study proposes theoretical and practical implications for ecosystem orchestration literature and suggests avenues for further research.
When firms want to meet ambitious sustainability targets, they often fail to deliver on more radical innovation at the level of the business model. They often struggle to design and successfully implement new, sustainable business models in practice. While sustainability tools might help bridge the design-implementation gap in business, they often lack a grounding in both theory and practice. In this study, we build on empirical research that recognises the importance of dynamic capabilities to develop sustainable business models, and the barriers and drivers that might exist at the organizational level. We investigate the following research question: How can firms address organizational design issues in order to develop the dynamic capabilities necessary for sustainable business model innovation? The research method consists of four stages derived from the iterative, user-involved method of design science research: 1) identifying the problem and defining objectives for a solution; 2) design and development; 3) demonstration; and 4) evaluation. The work results in the “Sustainable By Design” tool which was used in a workshop setting with two large multinational companies seen as sustainability leaders in their sectors: DSM and IKEA Retail (Ingka Group). The work makes two contributions. First, we contribute the Sustainable By Design tool which practitioners can use to evaluate their current organizational design, identify barriers and drivers for sustainable business model innovation, and develop strategic interventions to engage in organizational transformation. Second, we elucidate the theoretical connections between organizational design, dynamic capabilities, and sustainable business model innovation, and suggest directions for future research.
In the new paradigm of ‘transformative’ or ‘mission-oriented’ innovation policy, which addresses broad societal challenges, policy makers are given a large responsibility for setting or shaping the direction of socio-technical transitions. However, the literature has so far not provided much concrete advice on how to achieve directionality in practice. The main argument of this conceptual article is that a more detailed approach is needed to better understand the challenges policy makers might face when they attempt to translate societal goals into more concrete and actionable policy agendas. It identifies and discusses eight analytically derived directionality challenges: handling goal conflicts, defining system boundaries, identifying realistic pathways, formulating strategies, realising destabilisation, mobilising relevant policy domains, identifying target groups, and accessing intervention points. To illustrate these challenges, the article uses examples from the implementation of the Swedish climate goal in the process industry.
Increased focus on sustainability has made firms' value creation increasingly boundary spanning and complex. This begs the question of how business model research describes firm's external relationships, motivating us to undertake a systematic literature review. In analyzing 49 articles, we discuss and problematize four conceptualizations of external relationships—collaboration, alliances, networks, and ecosystems—arriving at nine propositions that clarify their meaning and refer to either firm‐centric or collective business models for sustainability. In combining these findings with review results from conventional business model research we identify three main blind spots in extant business model for sustainability research, regarding coopetition, wider inter‐organizational and sustainability tensions, and power. Based on these blind spots, we sketch a research agenda that could theorize business models for sustainability without neglecting their inherent tensions and contradictions.
Given the urgency of achieving net-zero emissions for climate stabilization, a deeper holistic knowledge of the key factors driving green industry, an emerging industrial strategy to build net-zero economies through sustainable production and consumption, is of growing relevance. The existing literature is fragmented into heterogeneous factors of green industry and a systematic review on the topic is lacking. This study aims to fill this gap by synthesizing the growing multidisciplinary literature on the driving factors of green industry by addressing a set of research questions. It has reviewed 211 peer-reviewed articles and 16 grey literatures published from 2009 to July 2022. A systematic review methodology is employed by defining research questions, a search strategy, search terms, databases, inclusion and exclusion criteria, and a synthesis strategy. A holistic factors framework has been constructed to discuss the results that can be used in evaluating green industrial growth strategies for net-zero economy. The study finds six key literature gaps that have theoretical and practical implications for future research. Firstly, potential threats (delayed decoupling, inequality, green extractivism, and stranded assets) identified in this review demand extensive studies that might contribute to a successful green transition toward net-zero emissions. Secondly, primary factors underpinning green industry are heterogeneous, fragmented, and less considered under the rubric of ‘green industry’, which require holistic frameworks and systems thinking to study. Thirdly, the literature focuses on the growth-environmental dilemma, overlooking social structures where green industry is embedded in, and the social implications must be considered with a focus on industrial inclusion. Fourthly, theoretical underpinnings of green industry evolve around green growth and degrowth that take distinct stands in challenging economic growth model to achieve net-zero emissions, but their theoretical claims and practical methods are highly contested, and their relationship and implications within different contexts of economies demand further research. Fifthly, the literature evolved globally, but primarily concentrated on China, and regional, provincial, and local perspectives are scant. Finally, the reviewed papers typically employ quantitative methods and few qualitative and mixed methods involving fieldwork.
This study aims to reveal how innovation ecosystems can organise value creation without a focal firm or a platform during the pre-phases of innovation. This has been scarcely researched hitherto; therefore, a participatory action research approach is used to reveal essential phenomena emerging in collaboration with research participants. An extended approach for innovation ecosystems to create value in society is hereby revealed beyond the coordination done by a focal firm or a platform, as noted in previous research. The study was conducted from September 2017 to June 2018 in a port in the Baltic Sea. Four enterprises participated in representing complementary activities for value creation in the pre-phases of establishing a new offshore wind park within the wind-energy innovation ecosystem.
The findings are summarised using in the ‘EcoValue BMI’ model. The findings highlight the essential role of value proposition in innovation ecosystems in focusing and structuring the direction of complementary independent initiatives for value creation, as noted in the middle of the model. All participating enterprises could identify the overall ecosystem value proposition.
This insight into the overall value proposition is realised by organising collaborative business model innovation (BMI) to set horizontal innovation directions for exploration and exploitation of interfaces and flow among ecosystem participants for cleaner energy production.
Further research is required to verify and enhance the ‘EcoValue BMI’ findings through new research conducted in similar large innovation ecosystems without a focal firm or a platform to coordinate the innovation ecosystem for value creation in society.
The changing business landscapes urge organizations to collaborate and combine their expertise to stay competitive. Organizations establish partnerships and collaborate via the Internet, which often happens dynamically and at fast pace resulting in formation of Digital Business Ecosystems (DBEs). DBEs are complex and their management requires having explicit and up-to-date information about them. Modeling enables thorough visual analysis and facilitates the understanding and formation of DBEs. It also allows viewing DBEs through multiple perspectives, as well as exploring alternatives in the course of DBE formation or management. This systematic review aims to synthesize existing studies pertaining to Conceptual Modeling for analysis, design, and management of DBEs. A total of 94 studies were included in the review. The findings suggest that there is a scarcity of existing Conceptual Modeling methods and tools supporting DBEs. Additionally, the extensive emphasis on DBEs’ actors in modeling leads to an urgent need for the methods to be extended to support the establishment of holistic views for integrating multiple perspectives of DBEs. Future research should focus on these areas to facilitate the transformation of how organization’s collaborations are viewed – from a single-organization to a multitude of viewpoints on organizational networks of collaboration, coexistence, and competition. Such models also need to support the key features of DBEs, such as resilience and automation.
Business model innovation (BMI) is often complementary to technological innovation and offers novel and sustainable value creation opportunities. Enabling BMI through policy is difficult, however, and not yet well understood in practice or theory. We build on the quickly evolving literature on policy mixes to develop a theoretical model which explains how policy strategies and instruments shape the conditions for BMI. We derive the model inductively by studying the emergence of an off-grid renewable energy BMI in sub-Saharan Africa which proposes to actively create sustainable development in rural areas as opposed to merely increase energy access, drawing from 61 interviews with companies and industry experts as well as policy documents across six African countries. Our model has three core theoretical implications. First, focusing on policy strategies, policy instruments and their respective interactions, we uncover a set of mechanisms that explain how policy mix elements combine to create conducive conditions for BMI. Second, we shed light on the role of multiple objectives and goals within a policy mix for fostering BMI, which, if balanced appropriately, can create a productive tension between support and constraints. Third, we suggest the distinction between sector-specific and society-wide policy mixes as an analytical tool to study these tensions in policy mix research.
Maritime transport accounts for around 3% of global anthropogenic Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (Well-to-Wake) and these emissions must be reduced with at least 50% in absolute values by 2050, to contribute to the ambitions of the Paris agreement (2015). Zero carbon fuels made from renewable sources (hydro, wind or solar) are by many seen as the most promising option to deliver the desired GHG reductions. For the maritime sector, these fuels come in two forms: First as E-Hydrogen or E-Ammonia; Second as Hydrocarbon E-fuels in the form of E-Diesel, E-LNG, or E-Methanol. We evaluate emissions, energy use and cost for E-fuels and find that the most robust path to these fuels is through dual-fuel engines and systems to ensure flexibility in fuel selection, to prepare for growing supplies and lower risks. The GHG reduction potential of E-fuels depends entirely on abundant renewable electricity.
The circular economy aims to minimize resource inputs and waste and emission outputs of the economy and its organizational subsystems. This can benefit both financial and sustainability performance of companies. To analyze industrial implementation of the concept, the prevalent unit of analysis on the firm level is currently the circular business model. Our investigation of nine Swedish biogas companies and one branch organization indicates a range of conceptual shortcomings that challenges this approach. Our comparative case analysis points towards circular ecosystems being a more appropriate concept to describe the high level of coordination between different stakeholders necessary to implement circular systems. This increases the suitability to analyze, plan, and communicate circular economy systems on an organizational level, especially if value chain integration is low. An ecosystem perspective can thus support innovation and entrepreneurship in the context of the circular economy.
E-fuels promise to replace fossil fuels with renewable electricity without the demand-side transformations required for a direct electrification. However, e-fuels’ versatility is counterbalanced by their fragile climate effectiveness, high costs and uncertain availability. E-fuel mitigation costs are €800–1,200 per tCO2. Large-scale deployment could reduce costs to €20–270 per tCO2 until 2050, yet it is unlikely that e-fuels will become cheap and abundant early enough. Neglecting demand-side transformations threatens to lock in a fossil-fuel dependency if e-fuels fall short of expectations. Sensible climate policy supports e-fuel deployment while hedging against the risk of their unavailability at large scale. Policies should be guided by a ‘merit order of end uses’ that prioritizes hydrogen and e-fuels for sectors that are inaccessible to direct electrification. E-fuels—hydrocarbon fuels synthesized from green hydrogen—can replace fossil fuels. This Perspective highlights the opportunities and risks of e-fuels, and concludes that hydrogen and e-fuels should be prioritized for sectors inaccessible to direct electrification.
Circular oriented innovation aims to address sustainability problems such as resource scarcity, pollution and climate change by (re)designing industrial products, processes, business models, and value network configurations. Although the literature identifies collaboration as crucial for circular oriented innovation—due to the complexity, risk and uncertainties involved—few tools have been developed to support it. To address this gap, we develop and test a tool that helps companies ideate to identify partners for circular oriented innovation. Furthermore, the tool integrates decision-making principles from the entrepreneurship theory of effectuation within a design thinking approach to stimulate collaborative ideation of circular propositions. We demonstrate and test the tool through six workshops, and collect data via observations, field-notes, assessment forms and user discussions. Our results show that: 1) users are receptive to visualisation and effectuation-based questions to collaboratively ideate circular propositions; 2) expert facilitation helps to maintain a circularity focus, and to avoid ‘business-as-usual’ ideas; and 3) differences in the maturity and scope of projects may influence the usefulness of the tool. We contribute to theory by exploring how effectuation, design thinking, and lean experimentation approaches can be combined to advance circular oriented innovation. We contribute to practice with the tool itself, which supports early and quick ideation to identify partners and perceived value, geared toward advancing the collaborative design of circular propositions.
Wind and solar power generation have been rapidly increasing on a global scale; this increase is limited by the capacities of the existing grids at maintaining balance between supply and demand to accommodate the fluctuations of these renewable energy resources. Therefore, grid flexibility has become a key factor in power systems. This study focuses on demand response business models (DRBMs), which have great potential for fostering energy flexibility in a cost-efficient and sustainable manner. Based on the literature review and empirical data from a case study, a business model analytical framework is proposed to explore the demand response potential based on value proposition, value creation and delivery, and value capture. This DRBM framework is characterised by nine elements: flexibility product, flexibility market segment, service attributes, demand response resources, resource availability, demand response mechanism, communication channels, cost structures, and revenue model. Based on this framework, a visualisation tool is proposed to help researchers and practitioners understand, integrate, and develop flexible electricity products. The application of this tool is then presented for electric vehicles as an example. The tool is valuable for evaluating the initial and untapped potentials of commercial demand response in electricity markets. This study thus contributes to the body of demand response literature via development of a holistic approach to assist recognition and creation of business models in emerging electricity markets.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown and social distancing mandates have disrupted the consumer habits of buying as well as shopping. Consumers are learning to improvise and learn new habits. For example, consumers cannot go to the store, so the store comes to home. While consumers go back to old habits, it is likely that they will be modified by new regulations and procedures in the way consumers shop and buy products and services. New habits will also emerge by technology advances, changing demographics and innovative ways consumers have learned to cope with blurring the work, leisure, and education boundaries.
Business model tools are commonly used to describe and communicate business model ideas. However, studies do not sufficiently address whether and how business model tools support the early, exploratory phase in which new business models are initiated, conceptualized, assessed and planned. In this exploratory phase, offerings and addressable markets are highly uncertain, which requires extensive idea generation, reframing, comparison and evaluation. This paper examines whether and how business model tools facilitate the process of business model exploration. Through action research, we find three ways in which business model tools can better facilitate the process of exploring, reframing and comparing alternative business models. The paper contributes to business model literature and managerial practice by providing empirical evidence on how tooling facilitates business model exploration.
Organizations are simultaneously embedded in inter-organizational networks and ecosystems, yet research on networks and ecosystems developed in isolation. The aim of this partial integration is to bring new energy into maturing research on organizational networks and
greater structure to the burgeoning research on ecosystems. In this article, we underlie similarities and differences between networks and ecosystems; bring the ecosystems’ focus on modularity and complementarity at the forefront of inter-organizational research while
enriching ecosystems scholarship with systematic applications of network analytic tools to map the patterns of component interdependencies.
While the role of agency is widely acknowledged in socio-technical transition research, there remains a research gap on agency in transitions and a call for studies using an actor-centred approach to transition studies. In response to this call, this paper
addresses the role of actors and, particularly, organisations in transitions. It examines the role of organisational change in socio-technical sustainability transitions and, more specifically, how transition initiatives may trigger and support these changes in organisations and systems. For this purpose, the paper draws on literature from both transition studies and organisational change management (OCM) to build a multi-scale, integrative theoretical heuristic. This addresses drivers and barriers for organisational change as an integral part of transition processes, connecting the micro level of the individual, the meso level of the organisation and the macro level of the broader system in which the organisation is located. With the goal of illustrating the links between OCM and transition studies, this paper empirically examines the impact of Region 2050, a large, multi-organisation transition initiative in Sweden, in terms of creating change within the organisations involved. The main focus is on how the organisations acquire the new knowledge and capabilities required for improving regional planning for sustainability. The empirical study identifies leverage points at the micro-, meso- and macro-levels, which may be used in order to change strategic planning processes. Three different theoretical concepts from transition studies and OCM that could help to foster long-term planning are also identified: (1) the macro-level of institutional plurality and its connection to the meso- (organisational) level; (2) collaboration as a key success factor on
the organisational level; and (3) at the micro-level, the roles of individuals as change agents and boundary spanners. Overall, the case highlights the merits of the OCM literature for transition studies and their emphasis on understanding interacting processes operating at multiple scales.
This paper concerns the emergence and diffusion of radical innovations in the context of sustainability transitions. We confront the typical understanding in the Strategic Niche Management framework with an in-depth longitudinal case study of French modern tramways (1971–2016), which represents a particular technology class: local infrastructure systems. The case confirms the relevance of existing SNM-concepts, but also points to three pattern deviations: 1) incumbent actors from neighbouring regimes can play a leading role in the development of radical alternatives, 2) the early formulation of highly specific visions can effectively guide search paths (as opposed to a usual prescription about more open-ended approaches to foster innovative variety creation), and 3) particularly influential projects (which we call ‘landmark projects’) can decisively accelerate innovation developments. Exploring a greater variety of diffusion and transition patterns (based on temporal interactions of causal mechanisms and varying roles played by different actors) is a fruitful way forward for sustainability transitions research.
Anthropocentrism and disciplinary research have not led to effective solutions to sustainability problems. A shift is required towards biocentric, transdisciplinarity-based solutions, to mitigate rebound effects and unintended, negative effects. In the field of Sustainable Supply Network Design (SSND), such shift implies on developing resilient solutions that maximize environmental benefits¬ instead of minimizing environmental impacts. Recent researches have showed progress in this direction, proposing more integrative approaches for SSND, but a framework to design supply networks with the purpose of environmental regeneration is yet to be proposed. This research aims to fill this gap, merging concepts from Regenerative Design, Transdisciplinary Research, Systems Thinking, Social Sciences and Design Sciences. Such framework is regarded as an artefact, and Design Science Research Methodology used for its development: a main problem is identified, objectives for a solution are drawn and the framework is designed. First, the Regenerative Supply Network Design is defined, to guide the elaboration of the Regenerative Supply Chain Design (RSND) framework, consisting of six steps: (i) description of the network surroundings and identification of a regenerative purpose; (ii) redesign of outputs (iii) network conceptualization, (iv) optimize performance, (v) choose configuration, and (vi) implementation. Among the implications of this research are that (i) practitioners basing their design process in this framework are effectively shifting from anthropocentrism to biocentrism with a clear, defined purpose of environmental restoration and (ii), that the supply networks evolve in the integration with the environment, enhancing eco-systems resilience.
Abstract The objective of this article is to introduce readers to the emerging research stream on business ecosystems, explicating the novelty and the usefulness of ecosystem-based theorizing, and hoping to pave the way for an influential but cumulative body of knowledge. The key tenets within an ecosystem-based perspective are outlined and used to contrast this emerging perspective from other established perspectives of value chains, supply chains, alliances, and networks. The article concludes by discussing the research approaches that can be employed to study ecosystems and the implications for organization design.
Smart mobility is a central issue in the recent discourse about urban development policy towards smart cities. The design of innovative and sustainable mobility infrastructures as well as public policies require cooperation and innovations between various stakeholders—businesses as well as policy makers—of the business ecosystems that emerge around smart city initiatives. This poses a challenge for deploying instruments and approaches for the proactive management of such business ecosystems. In this article, we report on findings from a smart city initiative we have used as a case study to inform the development, implementation, and prototypical deployment of a visual analytic system (VAS). As results of our design science research we present an agile framework to collaboratively collect, aggregate and map data about the ecosystem. The VAS and the agile framework are intended to inform and stimulate knowledge flows between ecosystem stakeholders in order to reflect on viable business and policy strategies. Agile processes and roles to collaboratively manage and adapt business ecosystem models and visualizations are defined. We further introduce basic categories for identifying, assessing and selecting Internet data sources that provide the data for ecosystem models and we detail the ecosystem data and view models developed in our case study. Our model represents a first explication of categories for visualizing business ecosystem models in a smart city mobility context.
Research Summary
The recent surge of interest in “ecosystems” in strategy research and practice has mainly focused on what ecosystems are and how they operate. We complement this literature by considering when and why ecosystems emerge, and what makes them distinct from other governance forms. We argue that modularity enables ecosystem emergence, as it allows a set of distinct yet interdependent organizations to coordinate without full hierarchical fiat. We show how ecosystems address multilateral dependences based on various types of complementarities ‐ supermodular or unique, unidirectional or bidirectional, which determine the ecosystem's value‐add. We argue that at the core of ecosystems lie non‐generic complementarities, and the creation of sets of roles that face similar rules. We conclude with implications for mainstream strategy and suggestions for future research.
Managerial summary
We consider what makes ecosystems different from other business constellations, including markets, alliances or hierarchically managed supply chains. Ecosystems, we posit, are interacting organizations, enabled by modularity, not hierarchically managed, bound together by the non‐redeployability of their collective investment elsewhere. Ecosystems add value as they allow managers to coordinate their multilateral dependence through sets of roles that face similar rules, thus obviating the need to enter into customized contractual agreements with each partner. We explain how different types of complementarities (unique or supermodular, generic or specific, uni‐ or bi‐directional) shape ecosystems, and offer a “theory of ecosystems” that can explain what they are, when they emerge and why alignment occurs. Finally, we outline the critical factors affecting ecosystem emergence, evolution, and success ‐‐ or failure.
Purpose: This paper explores how digital technologies have forced small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to reconsider and experiment with their business models (BMs) and how this contributes to their innovativeness and performance.
Design/methodology/approach: An empirical study was conducted on 338 European small-to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) actively using social media and big data to innovate their business models. Four in-depth case studies of companies involved in business model innovation were also carried out.
Findings: Findings show that the use of social media and big data in business model innovation is mainly driven by strategic and innovation-related internal motives. External technology turbulence plays a role too. Business model innovation driven by social media and big data has a positive impact on business performance. Analysis of the case studies shows that business model innovation is driven by big data rather than by social media.
Research limitations/implications: Research into big-data- and social-media-driven business models needs more insight into how components are affected and how SMEs are experimenting with adjusting their business models, specifically in terms of human and organizational factors.
Practical implications: Findings of this study can be used by managers and top-level executives to better understand how firms experiment with business model innovation, what affects business model components, and how implementation might affect business model innovation performance.
Originality/value: This paper is one of the first research contributions to analyse the impact of digitalisation, specifically the impact of social media and big data on a large number of European SMEs.
For over 40 years, scenarios have been promoted as a key technique for forming strategies in uncertain environments. However, many challenges remain. In this article, we discuss a novel approach designed to increase the applicability of scenario-based strategizing in top management teams. Drawing on behavioural strategy as a theoretical lens, we design a yardstick to study the impact of scenario-based strategizing. We then describe our approach, which includes developing scenarios and alternative strategies separately and supporting the strategy selection through an integrated assessment of the goal-based efficacy and robustness. To facilitate the collaborative strategizing in teams, we propose a matrix with robustness and efficacy as the two axes, which we call the Parmenides Matrix. We assess the impact of the novel approach by applying it in two cases, at a governmental agency (German Environmental Ministry) and a firm affected by disruptive change (Bosch, leading global supplier of technology and solutions).
While systematic literature reviews (SLRs) have contributed substantially to developing knowledge in fields such as medicine, they have made limited contributions to developing knowledge in the supply chain management domain. This is due to the ontological and epistemological idiosyncrasies of research in supply chain management, which need to be accounted for when retrieving, selecting, and synthesizing studies in an SLR. Therefore, we propose a new paradigm for SLRs in the supply chain domain that is based on both best practice and the unique attributes of doing supply chain management research. This approach involves exploring existing studies with attention to theoretical boundaries, units of analysis, sources of data, study contexts, definitions and the operationalization of constructs, as well as research methods, with the goal of refining or revising existing theory. This new paradigm will push supply chain management research to the frontier of current methodological standards and build a foundation for improving the contribution of future SLRs in the supply chain and adjacent management disciplines.
For the journal version: https://doi.org/10.1111/jscm.12145
Businesses and academia alike agree upon the significant influence of digitalization on the business world. Hence, digital transformation is a very topical issue. While researchers underline that the movement toward digitalization is a challenge influencing various dimensions, studies to date have largely focused on the technological and organizational aspects of digitalization. Consequently, there is a gap in digital transformation concerning the role of human resources and employee competency. This paper adopts a human-centered view of digitalization at the intersection of digital and human transformation. Drawing on design science research (DSR), we developed a framework as an artifact that takes into account individual employee competency related to an organization's level of digital transformation. As suggested by DSR, the framework was developed in iterations and refined after evaluation by various domain experts in academia and business. The final framework illustrates the interplay between the individual and organizational levels; in particular, employees’ transformation competency (intrapreneurial and digital competencies) driving digital transformation. Our findings suggest that the development of intrapreneurial competencies is dynamic. Based on an intrapreneurial journey, employee competencies function as triggers to reach the next level of digital transformation. As such, employee competency is crucial in enabling an organization's transformation toward digitalization.
No project for the transition to the circular economy can be carried out by a single organisation. This research addresses a gap by presenting a process and a set of tools to facilitate the development of circular business models. It contributes to building circular ecosystems by visualizing the parties involved, connecting and aligning their business models. Applying our framework can train people and help organizations achieve collective outcomes. Credence can be given to our claims as they have been tested in various contexts. 400 students and practitioners were involved in 9 business cases. An application is presented using data from a real case and a combination of role games.
The European New Green Deal and the REDII set ambitious targets, aiming to achieve a climate-neutral Europe by 2050. The transport sector is the most critical area to decarbonize, given the rigidity of both infrastructure and end-use technologies, as well as the challenge of reaching cost-effective production of sustainable advanced renewable fuels. Several researchers, stakeholders and groups of interest, such as international and governmental organisations, NGOs, business analysists, scientists and other actors elaborated scenarios on biofuels market penetration by 2050. These studies are largely used by policy makers, even if not necessarily were subject to a rigid peer review and verification process. This work presents an extensive literature review of the main published investigations, to assess and quantify the authors' different visions. These forecasts intend to evaluate the possible future development of the sector based on current and foreseeable policies, as well as industry and investors’ business plans; at the same time, these estimates should also provide policy makers with a sound base for policy development towards achieving climate goals. Through preliminary screening, based on a methodology of a set of ex-ante conditions, this work identified the most relevant publications and structured the analysis of the collected data. A total of 18 publications were selected from the literature review, resulting in 56 scenarios to be examined. This work allowed to achieve a comprehensive summary and quantification of the selected scenarios, all of which focus on biofuel contribution to transport decarbonisation in the period 2030–2050. Given the occurrence of several factors, as the ongoing and future technological development, the adoption of more efficient mobility models, the hybridization and electrification of transports, the Total Fuel Consumption for the transport sector is expected to reduce in Europe: averaged projections from the analyzed scenarios account for 312.8 Mtoe in 2030 and 274.2 Mtoe in 2050. Biofuels are expected to significantly contribute to achieve the EU targets, with a progressive shift towards advanced feedstock: on average, their total contribution is expected to account for 24.5 Mtoe in 2030, and for 48.3 Mtoe in 2050, while advanced biofuels are projected for an average contribution of 8.7 Mtoe in 2030 and 36.5 Mtoe in 2050.
This work analysed pre-pandemic published scenarios: the effects that the COVID-19 pandemic is having on the global as well as EU economies are uncertain, but there is a serious risk of hampering and postponing investment decisions in the whole energy area, making the achievement of RED and EU Green Deal targets even more challenging in this historical moment.
We are living in an age of accelerated change and even those industries, once dealing with relatively stable consumer habits, are now faced with the question: in the long run, which products will be demanded by the market and which ones risk to become obsolete? Giving an answer is a very complex issue, involving the evaluation of a high number of variables which have an influence on all segments of the production chain. Under these conditions, common economic forecasting techniques might be ineffective.
The author of this article looked for alternative research tools beyond strategic management. Megatrends, sectoral trends analysis and expert panel techniques have been structured and logically combined to produce a new method for the generation of future scenarios especially suited for groups of industry experts, called Themis. The paper presents the methodology as well as the results of the first large scale foresighting exercise built upon it, involving a total of 20 managers and entrepreneurs of the food sector in Italy.
The value of the Themis process does not lay as much in the production of statistically generalizable estimates or in selecting the most probable future scenario but rather in its support to long-term strategic thinking and in sharing opinions among peers.
This paper employs the theory of resilient complex adaptive systems (RCAS) to offer a versatile and universal foundation for the concept of a business model that facilitates connections between prior works while enabling future exploration with a common language. The proposed business model construct is developed by first exploring the field of systems to highlight how the concept of an RCAS can be employed to provide a more robust conceptualization of a business model than previous constructs. A thematic analysis of the literature is then conducted to translate the fundamental requirements of an RCAS into the business model context. This system view is inherently abstraction tolerant and provides a foundation for both academic research and practical applications. Specifically, it addresses two key gaps in the business model literature. First, the comprehensive nature of the system model naturally calls out important aspects of business models that have been largely ignored in the literature. Second, the construct provides a comprehensive means to connect the work of business model scholars and practitioners outlined in more than 150 studied articles, highlighting how each earlier research effort has employed a construct that is actually part of a grander whole.
Recent literature has turned considerable attention to the role of policy mixes in shaping socio-technical systems towards sustainability. However, the identification of relevant policy intervention points has remained a relatively neglected topic. This is a potentially significant oversight given that such intervention points constitute a mid-step between means (particular policy instruments) and overall goals (change in the directionality of socio-technical systems). By complementing existing work on policy mixes with additional insights from transitions literature, this paper formulates a conceptual framework of six policy intervention points for transformative systems change. The coding scheme developed on the basis of this framework is used to review current literature on policy mixes in sustainability transitions. It is shown that the latter has so far primarily focused on niche-regime dynamics while largely neglecting the broader context of these interactions. We argue that adopting a wider perspective on intervention points can aid future work on policy mixes by enabling the identification of root causes and critical problems of ongoing transitions, and to spot gaps in existing policy activities. The case of the Estonian energy system is used to briefly illustrate these possibilities. Methodologically, we demonstrate the value of combining theory-based concept-formation with a systematic literature review, enabling not only a provision of a summary of existing literature but also highlighting systematic gaps in that literature.
In this article, we offer some initial examination on how Covid-19 pandemic can influence fundamental essences and developments of CSR and marketing. We argue that Covid-19 pandemic offers a great opportunity for businesses to shift towards more genuine and authentic CSR and contribute to address urgent global social and environmental challenges. We also discuss some potential directions of how consumer ethical decision making will be shifted to due to the pandemic. In our discussion of marketing, we outline how we believe marketing is being effected and by this pandemic and how we think this will change, not only the context of marketing, but how organizations approach their strategic marketing efforts. We end the paper with a identifying a number of potentially fruitful research themes and directions.
Industry 4.0 is expected to impart profound changes to the configuration of manufacturing companies with regards to what their value proposition will be and how their production network, supplier base and customer interfaces will develop. The literature on the topic is still fragmented; the features of the emerging paradigm appear to be a contested territory among different academic disciplines. This study assumes a value chain perspective to analyze the evolutionary trajectories of manufacturing companies. We developed a Delphi-based scenario analysis involving 76 experts from academia and practice. The results highlight the most common expectations as well as controversial issues in terms of emerging business models, size, barriers to entry, vertical integration, rent distribution, and geographical location of activities. Eight scenarios provide a concise outlook on the range of possible futures. These scenarios are based on four main drivers which stem from the experts’ comments: demand characteristics, transparency of data among value chain participants, maturity of additive manufacturing and advanced robotics, and penetration of smart products. Researchers can derive from our study a series of hypotheses and opportunities for future research on Industry 4.0. Managers and policymakers can leverage the scenarios in long-term strategic planning.
The Multi-Level Perspective (MLP) is a prominent framework to understand socio-technical transitions, but its micro-foundations have remained under-developed. The paper's first aim is therefore to develop the MLP's theoretical micro-foundations, which are rooted in Social Construction of Technology, evolutionary economics and neoinstitutional theory. The second aim is to further identify crossovers between these theories. To achieve these goals, the paper analytically reviews the three theories, focusing on: (1) the relevance of each theory for transitions and the MLP, (2) the theory's conceptualisation of agency, (3) criticisms of each theory and subsequent conceptual elaborations (which prepare the ground for potential crossovers between them). Mobilizing insights from the analytical reviews, the paper articulates a multi-dimensional model of agency, which also provides a relational and processual conceptualization of ongoing trajectories in which actors are embedded. Specific conceptual linking points between the three theories are identified, leading to an understanding of socio-technical transitions as evolutionary, interpretive and conflictual processes.
Whereas research acknowledges the potential of business model innovation (BMI) to destabilize an existing regime, the impact of a socio-technical system in transition on BMI remains under-conceptualized. To advance work in this direction, this study expands the concept of a business model design space (BMDS), which describes the opportunities and constraints to design novel ways of creating and capturing value from niche technologies available at a given point in time in a transition. Illustrated with the case of electric vehicles in the Netherlands, we show how BMI are affected by and, in turn, affect this design space. We find that the policy and the science and technology dimensions of the socio-technical system form hard boundaries to the BMDS that niche actors cannot directly overcome via BMI. Yet, BMI can push the softer industry, market, and cultural boundaries of the BMDS by supporting niche expansion via coupling novel technologies to business models that (i) conform to the current regime, or that (ii) attempt to transform the regime. This paper offers an analytical framework that connects firm-and system-level to support the exploration of questions like how much novelty niche actors can introduce into a ST-system at specific points in a transition.
The imperatives of environmental sustainability, poverty alleviation and social justice (partially codified in the Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs) call for ambitious societal transformations. As such, few aspects of actionable knowledge for sustainability are more crucial than those concerning the processes of transformation. This article offers a brief overview of different conceptualisations of transformation, and outlines a set of practical principles for effective research and action towards sustainability. We review three approaches to transformations, labelled: ‘structural’, ‘systemic’ and ‘enabling’. We show how different ways of understanding what we mean by transformations can affect what actions follow. But these approaches are not mutually exclusive. We use an international set of examples on low carbon economy transformations, seed systems, wetland conservation and peri-urban development to show how they can be complementary and reinforcing. We describe three cross-cutting practical considerations that must be taken seriously for effective transformations to sustainability: diverse knowledges, plural pathways and the essentially political nature of transformation. Realizing the ambitions of the SDGs, we conclude, requires being clear about what we mean by transformation, and recognizing these basic methodological principles for action.
Studies of socio-technical transitions have often focused on niche emergence or on the interaction of niche and regime technologies in a ‘single-sector’ setting. Such analyses are particularly important in the early stages of transitions, when there is a primary interest in developing novel technologies. In later phases, transitions do not only involve multiple technologies but also multiple sectors, which means that the complexity of technology dynamics increases. We want to improve established frameworks—technological innovation systems and the multi-level perspective—to account for such phenomena. We study HVDC technology, which is a mature technology for electricity transmission that has remained in a niche for decades but recently gained new momentum
as the ongoing transition in the electricity sector accelerated. Our case highlights: i) the importance of multi-technology interaction within and across sectors, ii) an important role for innovating incumbents responding to these dynamics, and iii) an increasing relevance of multi-technology interactions and organizational responses in advanced stages of transitions. To guide our analysis, we introduce a novel multi-technology map. Such a tool can be useful to complement existing frameworks.
Defining business model as the logic/mode/way/framework to seek profit/money and glancing at the evolution of concept business, this paper develops a business model schema (BMS) as a holistic two-dimensions multi-level tool/method for business model innovation (BMI) based on the direct causal mechanisms of profit (DCMP). First, this paper takes DCMP as the logical/theoretical framework by which business model innovation process is identified and specified. And according to that process, it develops a BMS, illustrates an example of BMS to show up its practical usefulness, compares the similarities and differences between BMS and the existing powerful one business model canvas (BMC), and finally asserts that BMS must be a good and useful method in theory and practice because it stands on DCMP that ensures the genuine causality of profit and also it turns out practically useful, recalling the Kurt Lewin’s maxim (1945), “There is nothing so practical as a good theory.
Understanding the development of the industry creates major challenges for cleantech firms looking to renew their strategies to meet the continuously changing business conditions. Recent studies have argued that energy sector transition is both a technological and a social phenomenon that needs to be looked at from more holistic and comparative perspectives. The cognitive construction view of industry shows promise in opening up the role of managerial cognition and social construction in this regard. The cognitive construction view of industry suggests that the collective changes in firms’ beliefs about market boundaries drive development of the industry. Drawing on this view, we investigate cleantech firms' shared beliefs about the key technologies to recognize development patterns in the collective strategy frames and propose an approach to capture the emergence and development of the industry. For this purpose, the study analyzes longitudinal data collected from the annual reports of the incumbent firms operating within the cleantech industry. The results of the study found two sequentially developing phases in industry-level belief structures regarding renewable energy, sustainability, and digitalization as the key technology areas among the firms. In addition, it was possible to trace the differences between the firms’ beliefs about technology development to their different social networks. Thus, the findings suggest that the cognitive construction view of industry provides an opportunity to shed light on the complex dynamics of energy transition and envision industry development within the fast-changing industry conditions.
Keywords
energy transitioncleantech industrycognitionrenewable energysustainabilitydigitalization
A shared understanding of the basic requirements for modelling sustainability-oriented business is currently missing. This is hindering collaboration, exchange and learning about sustainability-oriented business models as well as the development of suitable and widely-accepted modelling tools. We contribute toward such a shared understanding based on a theoretical discussion of boundary-spanning and interactive business model development for sustainable value creation. The theoretical discussion feeds into a comparative analysis of the six currently available practitioner tools supporting the exploration and elaboration of sustainability-oriented business models. By synthesising findings from theory and available tools, we define four guiding principles (sustainability-orientation, extended value creation, systemic thinking and stakeholder integration) and four process-related criteria (reframing business model components, context-sensitive modelling, collaborative modelling, managing impacts and outcomes) for the development of sustainability-oriented business models.
The value-capture problem for innovators in the digital economy involves some different challenges from those in the industrial economy. It inevitably requires understanding the dynamics of platforms and ecosystems. These challenges are amplified for enabling technologies, which are the central focus of this article. The innovator of an enabling technology has a special business model challenge because the applicability to many downstream verticals forecloses, as a practical matter, ownership of all the relevant complements. Complementary assets (vertical and lateral) in the digital context are no longer just potential value-capture mechanisms (through asset price appreciation or through preventing exposure to monopolistic bottleneck pricing by others); they may well be needed simply for the technology to function. Technological and innovational complementors present both coordination and market design challenges to the innovator that generally lead to market failure in the form of an excess of social over private returns. The low private return leads to socially sub-optimal underinvestment in future R&D that can be addressed to some extent by better strategic decision-making by the innovator and/or by far-sighted policies from government and the judiciary.
The default value-capture mechanism for many enabling technologies is the licensing of trade secrets and/or patents. Licensing is shown to be a difficult business model to implement from a value-capture perspective. When injunctions for intellectual property infringement are hard to win, or even to be considered, the incentives for free riding by potential licensees are considerable. Licensing is further complicated if it involves standard essential patents, as both courts and policy makers may fail to understand that development of a standard involves components of both interoperability and technology development. If a technology standard is not treated as the embodiment of significant R&D efforts enabling substantial new downstream economic activity, then rewards are likely to be calibrated too low to support appropriate levels of future innovation.
Social acceptance and political feasibility are important issues in low-carbon transitions. Since computer models struggle to address these issues, the paper advances socio-technical scenarios as a novel methodological tool. Contributing to recent dialogue approaches, we develop an eight-step methodological procedure that produces socio-technical scenarios through various interactions between the multi-level perspective and computer models. As a specific contribution, we propose ‘transition bottlenecks’ as a methodological aid to mediate dialogue between qualitative MLP-based analysis of contemporary dynamics and quantitative, model-generated future pathways. The transition bottlenecks also guide the articulation of socio-technical storylines that suggest how the social acceptance and political feasibility of particular low-carbon innovations can be improved through social interactions and endogenous changes in discourses, preferences, support coalitions and policies. Drawing on results from the 3-year PATHWAYS project, we demonstrate these contributions for the UK electricity system, developing two low-carbon transition pathways to 2050 commensurate with the 2 °C target, one based on technological substitution (enacted by incumbent actors), and one based on broader system transformation (enacted by new entrants).
In this opinion piece we suggest a number of theoretical innovations related to the representation and conceptualisation of actors and agency in transitions studies. The research field has gained significant academic and policy popularity and reached a degree of maturity that belies its youth. Despite the ongoing advances and sophistications however, we argue that major lacunae remain regarding actors and agency. Because transitions are reaching advanced stages with more prominent roles for actors, addressing this issue is a prerequisite for progress in transition research – something which is widely acknowledged in the field.
Rather than the archetypical way of conceptualising a transition as some kind of systemic fight between alternative systems (niches) and dominant systems (the regime), we present a transition as a fluid unfolding of network activities by diverse actors aligned with a particular stream, resulting in a transformed system. We emphasize that our framework is a proposition – to stimulate debate and suggest avenues of further research. The ideas in this framework have yet to prove themselves, empirically and theoretically as regards their merits for transitions research, but at least they provide a different conceptualisation of transitions with a central role for actors and agency.
Patent citation analysis is considered a useful tool for identifying emerging technologies. However, the outcomes of previous methods are likely to reveal no more than current key technologies, since they can only be performed at later stages of technology development due to the time required for patents to be cited (or fail to be cited). This study proposes a machine learning approach to identifying emerging technologies at early stages using multiple patent indicators that can be defined immediately after the relevant patents are issued. For this, first, a total of 18 input and 3 output indicators are extracted from the United States Patent and Trademark Office database. Second, a feed-forward multilayer neural network is employed to capture the complex nonlinear relationships between input and output indicators in a time period of interest. Finally, two quantitative indicators are developed to identify trends of a technology's emergingness over time. Based on this, we also provide the practical guidelines for implementation of the proposed approach. The case of pharmaceutical technology shows that our approach can facilitate responsive technology forecasting and planning.
Business-to-business (B2B) and business network scholars have begun adopting an "ecosystem" approach to describe the increasing interdependence and co-evolution of contemporary business and innovation activities. Although the concept is useful in communicating these issues, the challenge is the lack of overall understanding of the added value of the approach, its particular theoretical logic, and its links to network management. This systematic review analyzes the usage of the ecosystem concept in B2B journals and its implications for network management. Common themes are distilled, the specific features of the ecosystem approach are examined, and four categories of the ecosystem approach are identified: (a) competition and evolution; (b) emergence and disruption; (c) stable business exchange; and (d) value co-creation. We also examine shifts in management opportunities and challenges related to these developments. Finally, we suggest a revised network management framework, where we address the implications of utilizing an ecosystem layer for the analysis, as well as using the ecosystem as a perspective in the management of business and innovation networks. Overall, this study contributes to the literature by providing a coherence-seeking, systematic outlook on the increasingly useful, but still nascent and ambiguously utilized ecosystem approach.
Tranfield, D., Denyer, D., & Smart, P. (2003). Towards a Methodology for Developing Evidence-Informed Management Knowledge Means of Systematic Review. British Journal of Management, 14(3), 207–222.