Strategy Innovation as Business Model Reconfiguration

Strategy innovation gained popularity during the 1990s as a notion applying to firms that reinvented competition in an industry. Throughout the 2000s business model innovation drew much of the spotlight. The key traits of both these concepts (and how they relate to each other) are often implicit or unclear. Through a literature review and by applying the key elements to some innovative firms for illustrative purposes, this paper discusses the emergence of the notion of strategy (and business model) innovation aiming to bridge these concepts while identifying their basic constituents. Successful firms manage to envision and implement new combinations along different routes, but always exploiting the complementarities through self-reinforcing mechanisms. Finally, the paper argues that strategy innovation triggers the need to broaden the interpretative schemes in the field of strategy, as it resembles more an art than a science

Open-system orchestration as a relational source of sensing capabilities: Evidence from a venture association

Research on innovation networks has highlighted the pivotal role that actors with more prominence and power, such as hub firms, may play in orchestrating the activities of other network members along a collective innovation effort. Our study examined the undertheorized, but no less important, type of orchestration that characterizes other organizations, such as business incubators and venture associations, who seek to support the dispersed entrepreneurial efforts of network members. We refer to this type as ‘open-system’ orchestration, as opposed to the commonly studied ‘closed-system’ type performed by hub firms. Our findings reveal how the processes of open-system orchestration differ markedly from those of closed-system orchestration, and detail how these processes influence the micro-foundations of network members’ sensing capabilities. By doing so, we also offer empirical substantiation and theoretical elaboration to the idea that dynamic capabilities might not reside exclusively inside firms, but could be co-created relationally with other parties in the business ecosystem

Foreign presence, technical efficiency and firm survival in Greece: a simultaneous equation model with latent variables approach

The aim of the paper is to explain the role that technical efficiency and foreign spillover effects have on firm survival. Panel data from Greek manufacturing industry (3142 firms) in 1997-2003 are used. Technical efficiency is estimated through a CES translog production function. A hazard function is then used (corresponding to the Exponential and Weibull distributions as well as the Cox model) to estimate survival probabilities. While foreign spillovers exercise a positive impact on hazard, foreign firms do not have any distinctive survival advantage compared to their domestic rivals. On the contrary, technical efficiency affects hazard in a negative way, improving survival expectations

The Effects of Cost and Asset Retrenchment on Firm Performance: The Overlooked Role of a Firm’s Competitive Environment

When firms face declining financial performance, research suggests that cost and asset retrenchment can lead to improved performance among poorly performing firms. However, previous studies have largely focused on firms operating in mature industries. This research develops and tests arguments that cost and/or asset retrenchment strategies will have different effects on firm performance in competitive environments characterized as growing and declining. In growth industries, asset retrenchment was positively related to performance improvement while cost retrenchment was unrelated. In declining industries, cost retrenchment was positively related to improved performance while asset retrenchment had a negative effect on firm performance. Implications of these findings for turnaround strategies are discussed.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

Business Model Design: Lessons Learned from Tesla Motors

International audienceElectric vehicle (EV) industry is still in the introduction stage in product life cycle, and dominant design remains unclear. EV companies, both incumbent from the car industry and new comers, have long taken numerous endeavors to promote EV in the niche market by providing innovative products and business models. While most carmakers still take 'business as usual' approach for developing their EV production and offers, Tesla Motors, an EV entrepreneurial firm, stands out by providing disruptive innovation solutions. We review the business model approach in the literature, then classify the innovation dimensions in the EV ecosystem. We study Tesla Motors in terms of: (i) innovation related to the vehicle, (ii) innovation related to the battery (iii) innovation concerning the recharging system, and (iv) innovation toward the EV ecosystem. Lessons for incumbent carmakers for their EV business model design: Tesla Motors 1) holds a product strategy entering from high-end market and moving to mass market, with a high level of innovation adaptation and learning by doing; 2) pays considerable attention to reduce range anxiety by high performance supercharger station network and high capacity battery; 3) shows a very high level of integration of information technology into many aspects of the EV business model, such as advanced in-car services and digital distribute channel; 4) shows a new value configuration which involving in high level of vertical integration towards battery and recharging network. All these lessons of this chapter would be worth the attention of the carmakers if the disruptive choices of Tesla succeed in challenging the dominant design