Orchestrating Business Model Innovation

Abstract

Business model innovation (BMI) is a powerful source of competitive advantage for firms in a dynamic world of increased digitalization. Despite the rise of BMI and the project-based firm as research fields, there is a profound need of unfolding the BMI in the context of the project-based firm. Theoretically, the study contributes with a new theoretical construct, orchestration of BMI, which here is defined as a series of organizational activities, which result in changes to the key elements of a firm's business model and/or the architecture linking these elements. Empirically, the study contributes with insight from a project-based firm in the engineering industry through qualitative analyses of 15 cases characterized by BMI. It is found that BMI in the project-based firm unfolds as iterative and network-centered processes led by entrepreneurial-driven project managers in the opportunistic pursuit of delivering value in innovative ways in concert with top and middle managers.