Disruptive business value models in the digital era

Abstract

AbstractThe coronavirus pandemic illustrated how rapidly the global environment could be disrupted on many levels but also drive an acceleration in others. Business leaders are grappling with dysfunctional business models that are ill-equipped to manage the disruptive environment of growing artificial intelligence. Hence, this study examined the discontinuous shift in the scope and culture of business models by exploring interdisciplinary streams of literature. An integrative review methodology was used in this study to develop theoretical constructs relating to business model innovation in the services sector. Key propositions were an innovation continuum, a responsive business innovation model and value architecture, which inculcates a sustainable value creation proposition and market advantage. Businesses must continuously evolve on the high end of the innovation continuum to reduce the risk of innovation apathy and strategic myopia. A key contribution of this study was the interdependencies in value networks that allow for collaborative working and co-creation of resources, such as crowdsourcing, crowdworking and social media platforms. This study also showed the growing importance of a centre of excellence to function at the forefront of disruptive technologies. A key finding was the need for governance structures to recognise and manage the trade-offs between value drivers, which sometimes may conflict with societal benefits. The integrative review revealed that customer relationship management, global business services and artificial intelligence had not been unified in the extant literature, which makes this paper novel in its contribution to businesses struggling with or opposed to the digital revolution.