Knowledge- and innovation-based business models for future growth : digitalized business models and portfolio considerations.

Today’s key challenge for firm growth relies in the integration of digital technologies and their use in new business models. Thus, firms increasingly engage in a digital transformation and in digitalizing their business model. Firms can apply digital technologies for improved or novel internal and external processes and integrate them in new business models. The digital transformation itself demands diverse knowledge from diverse origins in the firm. We examine the key concepts related to business model digitalization. We develop a conceptual matrix for portfolio considerations of firm business model digitalization. We introduce the seven contributions in this special issue on knowledge and innovation related to business and offer some recommendations for future research on the new working conditions and digital identities of firms

Digitalization of cross‐border R&D alliances: Configurational insights and cognitive digitalization biases

Research Summary: Firms implement digital technology for improving coordination and communication in cross-border R+D alliances. However, there is great ambivalence regarding how digitalization influences cross-border knowledge transfers. Our analysis clarifies some of this ambivalence by providing different configurations of absorptive capacity in cross-border R+D alliances. The fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) reveals only low absorptive capacity achievement in most configurations of digital technology implementation. The findings indicate effects of cognitive digitalization biases, under which firms take the benefits of digital technology for granted while ignoring deep-level challenges rooted in the contextuality of international ties. However, high absorptive capacity is achievable when (1) allying with bigger and younger partners, (2) under technological similarity, and (3) coping with the associated digitalization biases. Managerial Summary: Firms are eager to grasp the potential of digital technology. Within R+D alliances, digital technology is deemed to facilitate better coordination and communication. However, advantages from digital transformation are not always realized, as firms may overestimate the ease and usability of the underpinning technologies. We find that learning and understanding of partner knowledge is improved when R+D partnerships are forged between bigger and smaller partners, when partners feature technological similarities and both parties are similarly minded regarding technologies and do not take technology advantages for granted

Aspects of sustainability in the destination branding process: a bottom-up approach

The concept of sustainability is based on the premise that the inhabitants of a destination should be involved in the way that destination is managed and promoted. At the same time, the literature of place branding emphasizes the important role of local stakeholders in the creation of a true and reliable place brand. In fact, the process of developing a destination brand begins with the aim of shaping the identity of a destination; what the destination stands for. The sustainable dimensions of the destination branding process are explored, while focus groups and structured questionnaires are used to evaluate the usefulness of projection techniques in the process of building a brand identity. It seems that the use of the personification technique could work as an effective destination positioning exercise and as an alternative proposal to the outdated clichés used in tourism promotion

A socioemotional wealth perspective on how collaboration intensity, trust, and international market knowledge affect family firms’ multinationality

Internationalization theory does not account for the priority family firms place on socioemotional wealth (SEW). This can reshape how critical theoretical dimensions of collaboration intensity, network trust, and international market knowledge exert their effects. Bringing together the internationalization model of Johanson and Vahlne (2009) with SEW theory, our study of 334 German-speaking family firms reveals international market knowledge mediates the relationship between collaboration intensity and family firms’ multinationality. High network trust positively moderates the relationship between collaboration intensity and the acquisition of international market knowledge. Our work expands the predictive ability of Johanson and Vahlne’s (2009) important model

Entrepreneurial Business Models – Theoretische Grundlagen und mögliche Forschungsfelder

Geschäftsmodelle sind ein wesentlicher Erfolgsfaktor von kleinen und mittleren Unternehmen (KMU). Die Beschäftigung mit Geschäftsmodellen als Unterscheidungsmerkmal von Unternehmen gewinnt im Rahmen der Globalisierung und der fortschreitenden Digitalisierung vieler Wirtschaftszweige zunehmend an Bedeutung. Trotz der Entwicklung von einem Randthema zu einem zentralen Forschungsfeld der Wissenschaft ist das junge Forschungsfeld noch sehr fragmentiert. Der Artikel präsentiert einen aktuellen Überblick der Entwicklung der Geschäftsmodellliteratur und erläutert wesentliche Definitionsansätze. Darüber hinaus wird die Verbindung zur Geschäftsstrategie, dem Innovationsmanagement und der Wirtschaftstheorie aufgezeigt und erläutert. Kernaspekte des Beitrags sind die Einbettung in die Unternehmenstheorie durch die ressourcenbasierte Betrachtung des iterativen Prozesses und die Entwicklung eines umfassenden Stufenmodells der Geschäftsmodellinnovation. Das Modell baut auf der Individual-, Organisational- und Makroebene auf und dient abschließend der Analyse möglicher Forschungsfelder und der Ableitung von Implikationen für zukünftige Forschungsansätze