Five strategic foresight tools to enhance business model innovation teaching

We discuss our lessons from 8 years of teaching business model innovation to executives in our part-time MBA program. We inspect how the usage of 5 strategic foresight tools has supported students to innovate business models and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using student-owned live cases

Incumbent entry modes and entry timing in sustainable niches: The plant-based protein transition in the United States, Netherlands, and United Kingdom

While literature on sustainability transitions has generally portrayed incumbent firms as reluctant to engage in sustainable niches and primarily employing strategies that aim to limit niche growth, practice offers many examples that contradict this. In this paper, we mobilize insights from organizational literature, and particularly the concept of entry modes and entry timing from the international business and strategy literature, to investigate incumbent firms’ engagement in sustainable niches through the introduction of new products, collaborative efforts with new entrants, the introduction of new brands, mergers & acquisitions, and investments. We focus on entry modes of incumbent firms, including food firms, meat processors, retailers, and food service firms, in meat substitute markets in the United States (US), the Netherlands (NL), and the United Kingdom (UK). We identify distinct entry mode patterns for the four firm types and that the entry modes of different types of incumbent firms vary in their timing and commitment towards the plant-based meat substitute niche. Contrary to the general consensus stemming from previous literature on incumbent engagement in transitions, our case shows that incumbents proactively engaged with niche products incentivized by economic opportunities stemming from changing consumption patterns, which preceded any regulatory action

Sustainable business model innovation and scaling through collaboration

Over the past decade, scholars and practitioners have increasingly paid attention to sustainable business models (SBM). How to upscale SBMs is a key question in transition research, but current research has rarely adopted a firm-level perspective to discuss the scaling strategies that initiators of SBMs can use. Collaboration with other actors is one of these scaling strategies, but its adoption by firms hinges on different factors. Considering the type of initiator of the SBM (newcomer vs. incumbent firm) and the differentiation of the SBM's value proposition (high or low), we propose a framework which distinguishes four ‘scaling-through-collaboration’ strategies that firms can use. We explain each strategy with illustrative examples and discuss the array of potential partners and the incentives to pursue collaboration with them. Our work shows how firms can contribute to sustainability transitions by leveraging collaboration to scale their SBM

Now, switch! Individuals’ responses to imposed switches between exploration and exploitation

Individual ambidexterity is an important micro-foundation of organizational ambidexterity. However, switching back-and-forth between exploration and exploitation can be challenging for individuals. Prior research has mostly focused on bottom-up approaches to stimulating individual ambidexterity, yet many organizations are characterized by greater top-down control. Exercising control may complicate the pursuit of individual ambidexterity because it amplifies switching resistance. We draw on an observational study of facilitated strategy workshops to explore the role of switching resistance and steps that can be taken to deal with it in top-down settings. Our findings suggest that imposing switches on individuals tends to trigger a distinct pattern of behavioral responses. Furthermore, we find that increasing control and offering emotional support can reduce switching resistance and help individuals execute ambidextrous work tasks. Our study contributes to the literature on individual ambidexterity by extending it from bottom-up to top-down settings. Specifically, we identify emotional, cognitive and behavioral drivers of switching resistance and unpack the process leading up to resistance. Furthermore, we identify organizational measures relevant for addressing such resistance and resolving ambidexterity at the individual level.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

When incumbents change their mind: framing strategic reorientation in emerging fields

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Driving the electric bandwagon: The dynamics of incumbents' sustainable innovation

Abstract Given that entire industries face sustainability challenges, it is important to understand the dynamics that lead ?firms-in-an-industry? to engage in sustainable product innovation. To provide more insight into the question of how innovation activities spread from individual firm action to an industry-wide engagement, this paper examines the automobile industry and the development of electric vehicles (EVs). The analysis covers automobile incumbents over a crucial decade for EV development in the industry, focusing on the different strategic motives that especially the so-called ?first movers? used to justify their earlier engagement. We find that EVs became a core pillar of the incumbents' technology strategies through a combination of coercive, normative, and mimetic pressures. Yet, the strategic motives to engage in EVs stayed poles apart between different companies. The insights from our study are relevant for those interested in the diffusion of sustainable product innovation and in incumbent behaviour in sustainability transitions