BUSINESS MODEL INNOVATION – A GAMBLE OR A MANAGEABLE PROCESS?

Purpose: Any business model innovation process involves a certain level of uncertainty, complexity and, in effect, risk. A sloppy approach towards the management of risk may result in catastrophic, sometimes even fatal, consequences to a company’s core business. Although risk, risk appetite and risk management are relatively well-established concepts, their role in business model innovation is not well understood. The objective of this paper is to investigate how the risk associated with the innovativeness of a business model innovation, an organization’s risk appetite, and its risk management approach interact to affect the success or failure of a business model innovation process. Design: Retrospective case studies of business model innovations undertaken by three industrial companies provide the empirical basis for this paper. These companies were selected based on their relatively successful, yet somewhat different, business model innovation experiences over the years, and focused on the, in total four, cases in which they failed to implement their new business model attempts successfully. The reasons that led to these failures are discussed. Findings: Important factors explaining the business model innovation failure of these cases, appear to be the company’s risk appetite, the risk associated with the radicality, reach and complexity of the business model innovation, the management of risk, and especially the association between these factors. Originality:  There are many lessons to be learnt from the aftermath of a failed attempt in terms of what not to do and what to improve a next time. The cross-case analysis produced six testable propositions that enhance our understanding of business model innovation success/failure, with particular focus on: characteristics of the business model innovation; overall innovation management; risk, risk appetite and risk management; and interactions and fit between these constructs. Keywords: Business Model Innovation; Risk Management; Retrospective case studies

Reviewing excellence

Creativity and Innovation Management has grown substantially over the last couple of years, both quantitatively and qualitatively. From 2016 to 2021, the number of submissions has grown from 287 to 395. Most of the growth was realized in Asia: The number of submissions from that continent increased from 72 in 2016 to 193 in 2021. The rest of the world remained (close to) stable: 215 in 2016 and 203 in 2021. Equally important, the Thomson ISI Impact Factor increased from 1.423 in 2015 to 3.051 in 2021 and further to 3.644 in 2022. This is not where our ambitions end, though. We want to be the ever-better outlet for authors researching, and practitioners working in, the fields we cover. Editing a journal with the ambition to continuously increase its quality while dealing with a substantial growth requires teamwork—teamwork among the editors and the editorial office, teamwork between the editors and their reviewers and, as surprising as this may sound, teamwork between the authors and their reviewers in a top-quality reviewing process. The purpose of this piece is to present and discuss some reviewing standards. In particular, we aim to share with our reviewers what we think is an excellent reviewing process. Furthermore, we formulate our ideas about what it is that makes a review an excellent one. The title of this piece is deliberately ambiguous. It denotes that Creativity and Innovation Management strives for reviewing excellence—as in an excellent reviewing process. It also denotes that we reach for the stars and hope to one day receive and, hence, review only excellent submissions.</p