Business Model Innovation: A Spatiotemporal Exploration

Abstract

© 2025 Nermin AzabagicInterest in Business Model Innovation (BMI) has flourished in the last two decades, helping to establish it as a key concept, in both industry practice, and academic research. BMI is a complex, multifaceted phenomenon. This PhD thesis examines BMI as a process in which a firm deliberately makes important changes to key elements of its existing business model or develops an entirely new one. The PhD research is specifically focusing on the actors, activities, and interactions involved, using a spatiotemporal perspective to explore relevant contextual (spatial) and temporal factors shaping BMI. By means of a systematic review of the field, this PhD research examines the key definitions and concepts related to BMI, taking stock of the current state of BMI literature. As a result of the review, a taxonomy of spatiotemporally related boundary conditions is proposed. By means of qualitative research methods, the PhD research furthermore explored the process of BMI in established firms. Prior research has found that established firms find BMI challenging, due to cognitive constraints including path-dependency, industry dominant logic, and managers’ bounded rationality. Hence, a focus on established firms can add insights on how these challenges are addressed during BMI. Partnering with IBM Consulting, this PhD research examined, first, how strategy and design consultants work with established firms to undertake BMI. This research finds that activities inspired from the temporal categories of the present and near/distant future can address actors’ cognitive constraints and help unleash creative leaps needed for BMI. These insights contribute theoretically to the cognitive and temporal perspective on BMI. For managers, a process model is provided, with temporally ordered activities, which can help facilitate BMI. This thesis also explored how human actors interface with non-human actors, i.e. GenAI tools, in the context of BMI. A study of strategy consultants using GenAI for BMI uncovered a set of tensions when working with GenAI, including those related to confidence, trust, reliance and perceptions of value. Applying a paradox theory lens, this research identified an overarching paradoxical tension between automation and augmentation, which unfolds at the individual and task level. Consultants tended to navigate a precarious balance between gaining value from automation and/or augmentation, while protecting their own value within the organisation, and with their clients. Findings highlight a range of paradoxical management strategies, which have potential to lead to either vicious, or virtuous cycles. These insights contribute to paradox theory, demonstrating a multi-level paradoxical tension between automation and augmentation, while offering managers insights on how to manage the tensions in the fast-evolving world of GenAI. The overarching contribution of this PhD thesis is to illuminate a range of previously under-explored aspects of the BMI process in established firms, including actors, activities and interactions, through a spatiotemporal perspective. Overall findings indicate a need for elevating the focus on the future as a temporal category; deeper exploration of the balance between creative and analytical activities; and further examination of GenAI’s evolving role in BMI. Lastly, this research suggests that paradox theory may be a helpful frame to study the many tensions embedded in the complex undertaking that is BMI